


Hurstwood

by Berty



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Aristocracy, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-10
Updated: 2016-11-10
Packaged: 2018-08-30 05:15:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 31,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8519905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Berty/pseuds/Berty
Summary: Daniel Jackson is a reluctant peer after the death of his brother in World War I. Trapped by his duty he begins a friendship with the gamekeeper on his Sussex estate. As his own life begins to have meaning again, he struggles to balance what he owes his heritage and what he wants.





	1. Hurstwood Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So, about a million years ago, someone said what a brilliant idea it would be to write a Stargate SG-1 AU inspired by Lady Chatterley's Lover. They may have been drunk at the time, but everyone agreed that it was a very good idea and that it should definitely happen. Then things occurred and the first few chapters got shuffled further and further back into life's filing cabinet. Then suddenly, last year, three gorgeous people decided to set up a virtual writers retreat and try to recapture some of the fun we used to have. And did we ever! 
> 
> This has been sitting on my hard drive for years and would have stayed there if not for the support, encouragement and patience of those mad, twisted, glorious, gorgeous people. This is dedicated to my favourites, like always - Saladscream, Pepe, Nicci and Ximeria.

When he reached the edge of the wood Daniel stopped. Already, in the shade with the rough bark of the trees within reach, he felt better than he had all week, the tensions and disappointments of his day slipping from his shoulders. He cast a jaundiced glance over his shoulder at the source of his dissatisfaction; Hurstwood Hall and all it stood for. It sat grey and square in the distance, an uncompromising imposition on the gentleness of the scenery. Its rows of empty windows made him feel overlooked and claustrophobic despite his distance and the wide blue sky above him. He could trace his path across the perfect lawn, a ragged, dark stripe on the dew-covered grass before it was lost in the rough of the meadow. Childishly, he felt pleased by this scar of his own making on the order of the grounds and their oppressive symmetry. Daniel turned his face away from the house and headed into the welcoming shadows of the woods.

For a while he wandered aimlessly, enjoying the solitude and the scents of spring. The wood fairly simmered with the feeling of potential. White stars of anemones shone in drifts and already the hawthorn was in leaf, the pale green of its tiny leaves like a patchy mist of brilliant colour against the dull background of the leaf litter. Sticky, sap coated buds weighed down the sycamore branches, glossy and inviting. Daniel, feeling fanciful, persuaded himself that he could feel the riot of new life bubbling just under the surface, ready to break out at any moment and change everything. It was a strangely uplifting experience to be alone out here, the sole observer of so much transition.

It didn’t last. He was disappointed but unsurprised when he walked into a large clearing where he found he was not the only person abroad in the wood today. Two wooden sheds stood behind a high fenced enclosure and on the ground before them, a man knelt, his back to Daniel as he tended to a large feed tray.

Knowing it to be irrational, Daniel felt irritated all the same by the intrusion into his brief happiness. “Good morning,” he said a little sharply, surprised at how loud his voice sounded in the hush under the trees. As he moved closer, keeping his pace up in order to pass this interruption as fast as possible, he realised that it was Jack O’Neill, the gamekeeper, feeding the pheasant chicks. Despite his resolution not to linger, Daniel paused to watch the man at his task. 

This was the first year since the war that the wood might echo with the curious call of the pheasant. All the birds had been culled when, one by one, the men of the estate had gone off to war; some, like Daniel’s older brother, never to return again. 

The O’Neill family had worked at Hurstwood for as long as Daniel could remember, and this fellow had taken over as gamekeeper when his father had died, some years before the war. Of course, these days his duties included general groundsman’s tasks on top of his more traditional role. Daniel recalled hearing that this younger O’Neill had done rather well in the army, but had chosen to return to Hurstwood despite the option of an ongoing career in the military. He also remembered the scandal that had set village tongues wagging a few years back, when O’Neill’s wife had had a string of affairs, culminating in her taking up with a disreputable fellow in Stone Cross, where she lived to this day, so far as he knew.

Daniel watched through the fencing and over the man’s shoulder as the peeping, fuzzy little chicks ran over his fingers and the soggy leaf carpet, tumbling over themselves in an effort to get their share of the feed. He was very careful as he filled the trays, moving the little creatures gently to the side as he worked. 

Finally, O’Neill stood, brushed down the knees of his trousers, and turned to face Daniel. “Good Morning, my Lord,” he said quietly, taking the cap off his head.

Daniel wondered if this man had really not known whom it was standing behind him. Something about the way he didn’t look directly at Daniel, made him think that O’Neill was gently mocking him.

He was a tall fellow, maybe an inch or two taller than Daniel with brown hair beginning to grey at the temples, and his bearing spoke of his years in the forces – shoulders back, head up, as if he didn’t expect to be challenged. He was obviously strong and healthy, well muscled in the way a man who sees a lot of outdoor activity gets - a man enviably comfortable in his own skin. In all, it was completely at odds with his soft voice and the subservient tilt of his head.

“How are they doing?” Daniel asked, nodding at the noisy, demanding creatures scuttling over O’Neill’s boots. 

“Very well, my Lord. We’ve not lost more than a handful so far. In another week or two I can let them into the big pen.” And still the man didn’t look him in the eye. Daniel was at a loss to know if it was insolence, shyness or some mental weakness leftover from the war that made the man behave so. It unnerved Daniel, made him feel uncertain and stupid.

“I’m sure my brother will be pleased to hear that, O’Neill,” Daniel replied, gathering himself to leave this unusual encounter.

“Is it not for yourself then, my Lord? Are you not a sporting man?”

Daniel glanced sharply at O’Neill, expecting to see derision. Really, the man presumed too much and should be brought down a peg or two. But Daniel was distracted from a hasty response by the fact that O’Neill was finally looking him in the eye; a steady, mild gaze that wasn’t disrespectful but interested and warm. Daniel was surprised to notice that his eyes were brown rather than the hard blue that he’d imagined. They matched his voice rather than his body; smooth and unexpectedly gentle in the weak spring sunlight.

“No, not me. It’s Charles’ passion for shooting that persuaded me to this frippery. It amuses him and his friends. Keeps him out of my way,” Daniel admitted, then snapped his mouth shut. What was he thinking to be talking this way about his younger brother? And to the gamekeeper of all people! He cursed his own stupidity and wondered what O'Neill would dare next, but the man simply nodded. 

“Good enough, my Lord,” he responded quietly and his gaze slipped away once more. He stood there as if expecting orders and Daniel felt a ridiculous urge to run, to get somewhere far away from this intriguing, disquieting conversation. 

Suddenly the woods felt too cold to Daniel although the sun still filtered through the bare branches, dappling the ground with its tentative spring warmth. But the spell of the trees was broken, and he couldn't longer delay his return to the Hall and to the million and one dull decisions he made each day to keep it running.

“I shall pass the news on to my brother. Good day to you, O’Neill,” Daniel said awkwardly and walked away. 

“Good day, my Lord,” came the soft response.

Daniel resisted the temptation to turn and confirm his belief that the brown gaze followed him, lit with some private amusement that he could only guess at.

~::~::~::~

“I’ve invited some friends down next weekend, Daniel. Some of the fun crowd from town. You’re going to be here, aren’t you?”

Silvia’s voice was shrill over the breakfast table; it seemed to ring off the china and silverware. The puce of her sweater pricked at the corner of Daniel’s vision like some irritating and persistent insect. It clashed horribly with the burned orange colour of the heavy silk wallpaper that lined the dining room walls and that Daniel had always secretly detested. He knew his sister-in-law wasn’t deliberately annoying him, but her normal inane chatter was grating on him for some reason this morning.

“Who’s coming?” Elizabeth, bless her, saved him the effort of replying. “Anyone interesting?”

Elizabeth, Daniel’s sister, was much less jangling to the nerves he found, particularly before lunch. While Silvia Jackson was blonde and pink and rather bouncy, Elizabeth was gently calming. Daniel thought her somewhat severe looking with her neatly tucked dark hair and clear grey eyes, but he enjoyed the quickness of her mind and her no nonsense attitude.

“Nancy and Arabella Kearns, Lolly, Gus and Tilly, and darling Rupert. They’re driving down on Friday – should be here for lunch,” Silvia burbled, smiling as if she had announced the most wondrous line-up.

“Ah, the Kearns girls,” Elizabeth nodded. “Still unmarried, if you can believe that, Daniel.”

Daniel sent a rather pointed look in his sister’s direction, and stabbed at the butter dish more forcefully than was necessary, but she merely quirked a perfect eyebrow at him.

“Speaking of which, why don’t you invite Robert along too? Make a real party of it,” Silvia suggested to Elizabeth, carefully spreading marmalade on her toast.

“What a splendid idea,” Daniel offered, smirking at his sister’s discomfort. Robert had been a friend of the family’s for years and Daniel had suspected for some time that Elizabeth found his company to be something more than simply pleasant. He didn’t know why she didn’t give the poor man more encouragement. On the few occasions that Daniel had broached the subject with his sister, she had neatly turned the tables on him and questioned his own lackadaisical efforts at finding a wife and procuring an heir for Hurstwood. This, impertinent as it was, would effectively shut Daniel up.

Daniel had yet to find anyone he could share his life with. While this had been grudgingly tolerated when he’d been the second son, now Edward was gone and his father only a few months behind him, it had become a matter of family debate. Two of his aunts were positively adamant that he should marry as soon as humanly possible, parading suitable girl after suitable girl for his inspection. Elizabeth thought this quite hilarious, although she was of the same general opinion as the older women. 

She had once cornered Daniel in his study and told him, in no uncertain terms, that if the future of Hurstwood and the Jackson name was to be left in the hands of Charles and Silvia, she was going to run away with the next circus that came to town. Charles was an amiable chap, good natured and easy going, much like his pretty wife, but neither of them were exactly what one might call deep thinkers.

Of course Daniel hadn't known how to run an estate and had had things to learn on his return to Hurstwood, but he’d always been a bright student. The luxury of being the ‘spare’ to his brother’s ‘heir’ had meant that, by English standards and thanks to his mother’s family, his education and early years had been positively bohemian. He had travelled widely in Europe before finding his life’s passion in the burning desserts of Egypt and the compelling history of its complex civilisation. 

Before the war had changed the world forever, Daniel had imagined a life there, away from the confinement of Hurstwood and the privileged but humdrum existence that awaited him. While unconventional, it wasn’t impossible that he could have lived and worked there. But that dream had died at the same time as his brother, Edward, on the cold, unforgiving plains of northern France.

Charles’ entrance stopped Daniel’s melancholy chain of thought abruptly.

“Morning all,” he said cheerfully and went to the sideboard to load up a plate with eggs and bacon. “Any tea left?”

Silvia did the honours with the teapot, smiling fondly as her husband sat down beside her. “I was just telling Daniel about the gang coming down next week,” she chirped, dropping sugar into Charles’s tea.

“Which reminds me, I must get that note down to O’Neill about the dates in October,” Charles muttered, accepting his cup and saucer.

“He’s a curious fellow, don’t you think?” Daniel surprised himself by asking aloud. His mind had wandered more than once to the unusual gamekeeper in the fortnight since they’d met in the wood. 

“I should say!” Silvia replied quickly. “Sort of a helmet, if the gossip’s to be believed.”

“I think you mean hermit, Silvia, darling, unless the man is by way of being protective headgear,” Elizabeth smiled gently.

Silvia didn’t exactly scowl, but she looked momentarily displeased before the lure of a juicy story got the better of her. “He never goes anywhere,” she continued, warming to her tale. “Keeps himself quite to himself, apparently. Almost aloof. His wife doesn’t spell it out, but it seems that she had to leave due to his lack of interest in anything… well… not to be indelicate, but…romantic.”

Daniel frowned, Elizabeth hid a smile, and Charles murmured something to his wife about listening to servant’s tittle-tattle. 

“Well, it’s true,” Silvia pouted, her cheeks going even more pink. “He’s never seen in the village unless he’s at the grocer’s. Never goes to church. Never at the Five Bells.”

“Maybe he just likes a quiet life,” Daniel replied before Silvia could continue. “It’s not a crime.” He put his napkin down and got to his feet. Daniel walked around the table. “I’m going down to check on the weir later, I can take a note if you leave it in the hall.”

“Oh, Daniel,” Elizabeth sighed in amused exasperation, “we can get one of the staff to run messages for us.” It was an old argument of theirs, how often Daniel declined to behave in a way befitting his birthright. But Daniel refused to be dictated to on this, forced into a mould by tradition and expectation. It was a pathetic and minor rebellion against his circumstances, but Daniel believed that by doing so he held onto a little of himself instead of allowing Earl Ashdown to completely erase the man he had been before.

He shrugged at his sister, unapologetic but unwilling to revisit their tired arguments. “I’ll be leaving in about half an hour.”

Charles nodded and went back to soothing his wife’s ruffled feathers.

~::~::~::~

A few weeks had made a big difference in the woods. The fresh new green of the leaves lightened the sombre browns and greys of the trees and the leaf litter was a carpet of new growth studded with the soft yellow of primroses and the last of the anemones. Bluebell leaves pushed toward the sun, glossy and dark, promising a show for next month.

Daniel made his way along the track that lead to the little gamekeeper's cottage with some trepidation. He hadn’t been down here in years, not since the younger O’Neill had taken the job. He’d been unsettled by the man on their last encounter and was determined not to let him get the upper hand in this conversation.

The cottage was as Daniel remembered, a small, grey flint building with a wooden fence marking it off from the rest of the wood clearing. It was tidy, with the garden dug over and everything in good repair, but it also looked impersonal and unloved. A slow trickle of smoke rose straight up from the chimney into the windless sky, the only sign that anyone lived there.

Daniel knocked, and knocked again when there was no response. He supposed he could just leave the message, but thought that perhaps the reply would be immediate. He peered through one of the spotless windows into an equally spotless, equally plain sitting room

A noise from the back of the cottage drew Daniel’s attention. He’d walked all this way and mentally prepared himself to talk to the gamekeeper, so he went around the corner. The garden backed onto a steep, rocky slope, topped by trees that must have made the cottage dark early in the evening, but the sun was high in the sky now. Daniel rounded the corner and stopped short.

Not ten yards away, O’Neill was washing himself, completely unaware that he had company. He was stripped to the waist and bent over a large enamel basin scooping handfuls of water over his head and neck, which streamed from his hair and down his shoulders. 

Daniel quickly stepped back, putting the comfort of the wall between himself and this curiously intimate scene but he couldn’t erase the image in his mind of the man’s wet hair and the glint of the water as it dripped off his skin. Unlike the previous tenant who’d always seemed ancient to Daniel, Jack O’Neill was still young. His pale back was broad and spoke of an innate strength, physical and strangely spiritual – a man alone; resourceful, self-contained and whole. Someone real.

As quietly as he could, Daniel walked back along the track a ways and sat down on a fallen tree trunk, ignoring the damp cold that spread through his trousers. It was ridiculous to feel so rattled by the sight of a half-naked man. He’d been in the army, for God’s sake. Daniel had been around men all his life between school, the digs and the war. Semi-naked men were hardly something he was unused to. He was most certainly no innocent, and before the war, during his Oxford days, he’d been very well acquainted with the male form in a manner of speaking – a guilty pleasure he’d put aside years ago and rarely thought of since. So why did he now feel this strange physical response to the sight of O’Neill of all people?

Feeling angry with himself, Daniel returned to the cottage. He rapped loudly on the door and straightened his shoulders when he heard the unmistakable sound of footsteps on the other side.

O’Neill swung the door open, and Daniel was pleased to see that he was better prepared for company now he wore a simple white shirt, a towel still slung around his neck and his hair uncombed.

“Good morning, O’Neill. I’m sorry to disturb you, but I have a message for you from my brother.” Daniel held out the cream envelope, resolutely keeping his eyes off the un-tucked hem and the un-buttoned collar that showed a triangle of lightly tanned skin.

The man took the note, but immediately placed it on the table beside the front door without reading it. “Good morning, my Lord. Won’t you step inside for a moment?”

Daniel hesitated. It was insanity to be unsettled by this man; stupid to feel shy or gauche around this simple fellow and his simple life. 

Boldly he stepped into the little house, brushing past O’Neill and ignoring the lingering scent of cold air and harsh soap. 

The cottage was small but quite bright, which was strangely at odds with the look of the place from outside. The furniture was minimal and mostly plain in style, all except a fine dark-wood desk off to one side of the sitting room. On the rug in front of the grate sat a spaniel, a young looking liver and white, its eyes flickering to Daniel as he moved into the room, but always returning to O’Neill. Its watchfulness and barely contained enthusiasm told Daniel that it had been told to stay.

“Hello there, fellow,” Daniel said quietly to the creature and it wriggled in place, seemingly desperate to greet him.

“It’s a bitch,” O’Neill informed him. “Bramble, come.”

The dog complied with a bound and wagged her stumpy tail in delight when Daniel crouched down to scratch her ears.

“You’re a beauty, aren’t you?” Daniel smiled as the dog rolled over submissively. He obliged with a tummy rub, which sent the dog into further paroxysms of joy.

“She likes you,” O’Neill commented when Daniel looked up at him, smiling. He returned the smile, then blinked and sobered. “My Lord,” he added quickly.

Daniel turned his face back to the dog and O’Neill took up a pair of spectacles from the desk and returned to the door and Charles’ letter.

“I was coming down this way anyway, thought I’d stop by just in case you had a reply I could take back to him,” Daniel heard himself say. More stupidity. He didn’t have to justify anything he did a member of his staff. But for some reason he didn’t want the man to think he was the sole reason for his visit this morning. “I was on my way to the weir, apparently there’s work that needs doing down there. The storms blew a number of trees down into the lake and…”

Daniel stopped talking. What was the matter with him? He gave Bramble one last scratch on the belly and straightened up to be greeted by O’Neill and that vaguely amused gaze he had. 

He looked quite different with his glasses on. He stood with the letter in one hand and his towel in the other, quite unconcerned by his appearance. It was a confidence that Daniel didn’t think he’d ever felt, despite his upbringing. He just didn’t have the same kind of ease that O’Neill seemed to have in abundance. The man had a sense of his place in the world, and he was happy with it. Daniel didn’t. Even in the somewhat detached but loving embrace of his family, he had no deep feeling of belonging. O’Neill appeared to carry belonging with him wherever he went. 

“Shall I write a quick word to Mister Charles, my Lord?” O’Neill asked quietly, his eyes boring into Daniel as if he understood the uncertainties that beset him, as if he knew that Daniel kept it hidden beneath a veneer of tradition and civility.

Daniel nodded and muttered a pathetic thank you. He needed to get out of this little cottage and its air of order, and away from its inhabitant who smiled too little and looked at him too directly.

O’Neill sat at his desk and bent over the notepaper, writing a reply, his head cocked and his shoulders stretching the thin material of his shirt. Daniel was abruptly reminded of earlier and the scene in the little garden – of the paleness of O’Neill’s skin. Of the careless vulnerability of his position. Of the way the muscles in his shoulders had moved.

“I’ll wait outside in the sunshine,” Daniel said quickly and walked out of the door without waiting for a reply.


	2. Hurstwood Chapter Two

The Kearns sisters turned out to be as perfectly awful as Daniel had remembered. After three days of their empty chatter and giggling, Daniel was desperate for some peace. Knowing that he would get offers of company if he announced that he was going out, he skipped breakfast and slipped through the garden door before the rest of the house was awake, his footsteps unerringly taking him back into the wood.

The weather had been warm and the bluebells were fit to burst. In a week the ground would be a carpet of purple and the air scented with their sweetness, but for now there were only a few impatient blooms, startling snatches of colour against the more sober greens and browns of the understory.

There was a stillness under the trees that soothed Daniel’s jangled nerves and even the birds – usually a constant twittering down here - were still subdued this early in the day. As he walked, Daniel realised how irritated he’d been this weekend from the way it slowly dissipated now he was finally alone. He found himself at the lake, and he sat down on a log beside one of the yews planted by his ancestors. Jacksons had lived in this part of the county for generations, growing wealthy and influential over the years, culminating in the ennoblement of his great-great-great grandfather, the first Earl of Ashdown. He wondered bleakly what that redoubtable man whose portrait hung on the staircase would have made of his own reluctant tenure of the place.

This weekend only underscored everyone's interest in Daniel’s marital status and although his family and friends thought they were being terribly subtle by introducing him to all the eligible women in this county and the next, their motives were as plain as day. 

Daniel had hoped that his own family would know him better than that. For him, foolish romantic that he was, falling in love was a rare and precious gift and something that, if it were meant to happen, would happen of its own volition. The stilted conversations he’d had with an endless parade of socialites only made him more certain that he would never share his life with anyone – not in the way he wanted to. But it was frequently made clear to him that his own feelings were firmly secondary to the requirements of his name.

His parent’s marriage had been little more than a friendship with procreation as an expected condition. There was nothing wrong with that and they had rubbed along happily for years with a touching fondness for each other and shared vision. Some of Daniel’s friends were in similar situations – married to heiresses or suitable girls without ever really knowing them. It seemed to be an accepted convention, as if it were written somewhere and Daniel had simply missed it. At least Charles, for all his lamentable lack of academic prowess, really seemed to care deeply for his wife. And she for him. They suited each other well and Daniel sometimes felt an irrational and shaming stab of jealousy when he saw them together.

Daniel had no match out there apparently. 

He knew he would never be another Edward who'd been confident, handsome and decisive, a son his father had been very obviously proud of. Daniel was a quiet man, a studious man. Life, to Daniel, was something to be cherished and experienced, not counted off in the mundane until the day you died. He had so many questions, so many ideas. Everything to him was interesting, everyone knew something he could learn from them. But since he’d returned to Hurstwood in the grey days after the war, that interest and spark seemed to have been banked – no more than a dull glow remained. And Daniel knew he was slowly suffocating from its loss.

He remembered his days in Cairo and Luxor with a yearning that left him feeling trapped and hopeless. That was the real him. Only in an environment where every day held new knowledge for him to absorb was he completely at home. In the past two years he had planned three trips to Egypt, and each of them had been delayed, postponed and ultimately cancelled due to the constraints of being the sixth Earl of Ashdown. 

He had tried to throw himself into the life he’d been handed knowing that the fault lay in himself. Daniel had learned a lot about farming, livestock and crop yields, he'd studied the history of the house and the area and he'd followed politics. He'd even attempted to take an interest in finance and banking following his father's example. But nothing had held his interest for long and he'd slipped quietly into the numbness of his daily duty.

He was roused from his brooding by the excited whine of a nearby dog. Daniel turned to see Bramble explode out of the undergrowth and run up to him, dancing and spinning with happiness. A scowling O’Neill appeared a moment later, carrying a rifle broken over one arm. He stopped short when he caught sight of Daniel.

“I’m terribly sorry, my Lord. I had no idea you were here. We didn’t mean to disturb you.” O’Neill walked closer and hooked a practiced hand through the collar at the bitch’s neck. She settled immediately.

“It’s quite alright. Don’t trouble yourself,” Daniel replied, reaching a hand to the dog, which it licked enthusiastically. “I was just… out walking. You’re not disturbing anything, O’Neill.”

The gamekeeper lifted his head to the sky where the sun hadn’t even crested above the trees. “It's still early. Could you not sleep, my Lord?” he asked, turning that far-seeing gaze back upon Daniel.

More familiarity, Daniel noted, but he didn’t find it unpleasant in the slightest. On the contrary, he was glad the man had taken him at his word, and not disappeared immediately back into the woods. 

“Guests,” Daniel muttered with a rueful smile and stared out over the lake. O’Neill turned to follow his gaze.

“Ah. I don’t get that problem too often down here, my Lord. It’s not to everyone’s taste, I’m sure, but it suits me. The woods are always good for avoiding company you don’t desire. You should come more often.”

Daniel held himself perfectly still, knowing that mild amusement would be on O’Neill’s face. Was the man extending an invitation to land that had been in Daniel's family for generations? Somehow Daniel knew that wasn’t it, and was more likely the recognition of a similar soul, one that found solace in the simplicity of nature and quiet. But was that the whole meaning behind his deceptively straightforward exchange? Daniel knew the man to have a sharp wit, but to be very sparing with his conversation, and thought that maybe these few words meant something more.

“I wouldn’t want to… disturb you, O’Neill,” Daniel ventured, pleased to hear how steady his voice sounded.

There was a quick huff of laughter as O’Neill recognised his own words fed back to him. “I’m sure your Lordship is welcome in his own woods at anytime.”

Daniel wondered if the man would leave now they had shared a small joke, and felt strangely saddened at the potential loss of his company. Once again he fought the desire to turn and look at this confident, unpredictable man. The small noises beside him didn’t give anything away.

After a moment, O’Neill came into his line of vision, sitting down on the log beside him and scratching at Bramble’s neck, seemingly at ease.

Daniel couldn’t decide if the man was being deliberately insolent, if his own manner had given O’Neill the impression that he could behave like this, or if he really didn’t know how he was supposed to act around his employer. 

Should he walk away, make his displeasure known? But, Daniel realised, he didn’t really feel any displeasure. He wasn’t concerned at all about this strange, unprecedented conversation or the man’s manner. All he felt was a stirring interest. The novelty of talking with this quiet, honest man and learning a little of what his life was about held an allure for Daniel, one he hadn’t felt in a long time.

Daniel tried to relax beside O’Neill as their stillness lengthened, tried not to be stiff or uncomfortable and he cursed the years of breeding that had prepared him for a life that didn’t include something as simple as this.

The lake mirrored the sky and Daniel watched as the ripples from the ducks made pale gold waves lap against the shore. O’Neill said nothing, just watched the sun creeping up above the trees. Strangely, Daniel felt his nerves settle, the longer they sat there. It felt natural – like they were sharing something. But he was as surprised as he’d ever been to hear his own voice break the companionable quiet.

“I learned to swim here, you know,” he admitted softly, hearing the quick chuckle of the man beside him. 

“Only after you’d tried to drown yourself a couple of times, my Lord.”

Daniel laughed too. He’d forgotten that part. “That’s right. I did. I was…” He stopped abruptly and finally looked across at his companion.

“Three times I had to pull you out of there that week before you got the hang of it,” O’Neill muttered, a small smile on his face and his eyes still on the opposite shore.

“Good God! That was you?” In his mind’s eye, he’d assumed it had been Edward that had dragged him up out of the dark, cold grasp of the water. He’d realised it was someone bigger than him, but not that it had been O’Neill. “I can only have been eight…”

“Seven. I was fourteen.”

“Well, then, I suppose I should thank you, O'Neill,” Daniel smiled.

“Was nothing, my Lord. You were a skinny little thing. It didn’t take much to lift you, even wet through. You didn’t give up though. Came back every day until you’d got it.”

“Stubborn,” Daniel said ruefully.

“Determined,” O’Neill offered grudgingly. 

That had been the summer before he’d been sent to boarding school for the first time. In his memory it had seemed to go on forever; long, golden days when he’d roamed the estate, either with his brother or alone. Learning all the best hiding places. Watching where the kites had nested. Building dams in the streams.

He was dragged back to the present by the low grumble of a growl from Bramble. Daniel looked about in surprise, wondering what could draw such a noise from the good-natured little bitch.

Daniel felt a brushing touch on his wrist and looked down to see O’Neill pointing to the opposite side of the lake where a fox slunk along the tree line.

Daniel tried to concentrate on the swift, silent progress of the animal, but it felt like he’d been burned. Where O’Neill’s hand had touched him, the skin was suddenly too sensitive and Daniel struggled not to pull his hand away. What was wrong with him? What sickness had he caught that the most innocent contact could make him behave so insanely?

O’Neill was moving - slowly reaching for his gun at his feet without taking his eye off the fox. The dog sat silent now, trembling a little as she too tracked the animal’s progress.

“Jack,” Daniel murmured quietly, “…don’t.”

O’Neill turned surprised eyes back to Daniel, causing him to feel a thrill of excitement that he’d managed to get an unconsidered response from the man finally.

“This is my job. This is why you pay me, my Lord," O’Neill said, but eased back, away from the shotgun. “She’s the one’s been at the chicks.”

Daniel shrugged. “She kills them, my brother kills them, they still end up dead. It hardly matters by what means, does it?”

“That’s one way of looking at it,” Jack said softly, then stood up, causing Bramble to scrabble up too. He hefted the gun back over his forearm, its barrel pointing down to the ground. “Good morning... my Lord,” he muttered, hesitated a moment, quickly laid a hand on Daniel’s shoulder then walked back into the woods without leaving a trace.

Daniel sat, lost in thought, until his legs were numb and the sun was well up in its path making him late for church.

 

~::~::~::~::~

 

His family was even more irritating than usual at lunch, two weeks later. Something about the air of suppressed excitement in the dining room made Daniel long to send them all to their rooms as Father had done when they were younger.

Daniel had enjoyed the quiet few days after the departure of their weekend guests only to have to repeat the process again the following weekend with a new cohort of his brother’s pals. Being ‘on show’ was the part of his title that he hated most and although he still felt that slight pressure, living with the household servants and his brother and sister, it was nothing like as bad as being host to a houseful of people he had nothing in common with.

Silvia reminded Daniel of Bramble today – she was practically quivering with energy and bubbly laughter at the table. What made it worse was that Charles too looked fit to pop and Elizabeth was concentrating so hard on her fruit that Daniel wondered if she were quite well.

When the plates were finally cleared, Daniel took a deep breath, knowing that if there were news to be told, this would be the cue. He said a silent prayer that it wasn’t another weekend party and waited. He wasn’t disappointed. 

“So, chaps,” Charles began, leaning forward over the table in his excitement, “Silvia and I have a bit of thing to tell you.”

“A thing, Charles? What kind of thing?” Elizabeth asked, dragging herself back from wherever her mind had been all morning.

“It’s such a laugh! Tell them, darling,” Silvia squeaked.

“Well, it’s like this… we’re going to have a baby,” Charles beamed, looking as if it were all his own doing.

“Oh, Charles! Silvia!” Elizabeth said warmly, looking really animated. “That’s wonderful.”

“Congratulations,” Daniel said, “What excellent news.” He meant it and the smile on his face was genuine. He got up and shook Charles’ hand, and kissed his sister-in-law. Then Elizabeth was hugging them and asking questions, telling Charles that he had to make sure that Silvia got lots of rest and chatting about decorating the nursery. Daniel smiled wryly as the women began to pull a bewildered, but proud looking Charles into the Drawing Room to discuss names and paint colours.

Finally the room was deserted save for Daniel who stood pondering the prospect of a Hurstwood filled by little Silvias and Charleses.

“Daniel?”

He turned to find Elizabeth, standing in the doorway, watching him with poorly concealed unease. “Yes?”

“On the subject of family news,” she faltered, then stood straighter, her cheeks a-glow “Robert wanted to know if you were busy this evening. He’d like to talk to you.”

Daniel looked at his sister’s embarrassed face and raised an eyebrow at her until she rolled her eyes and flapped a hand at him. This wasn’t unexpected, but all the same it made Daniel happy to see his sister so pleased. “I’m always happy to see Robert, Beth. This evening is perfect.”

Elizabeth blinked at Daniel’s use of her childhood nickname, but smiled shyly in return and walked off, her footsteps growing faint in the now quiet house.

Daniel went to his study and tried to concentrate on some accounts he’d been sent from one of the tenant farmers, but after the excitement of lunch, the lure of the sky outside his study window was too great.

The particularly warm spring had brought the bluebells on fast and Daniel could smell their sweetness even before he’d got through the gate into the wood.

Today's news had left him undoubtedly happy but even more unsure of his own path than before. The future seemed set; his sister happily married to their childhood friend, his brother with a family of his own, and him, rattling around his estate, connected to nothing or no one but a pile of stone, and without even the pursuit of knowledge that had been his life before Hurstwood had called him to his familial duty.

It was a strange thing to feel melancholy on a day of such happy tidings and Daniel couldn’t help but feel guilty. He paid little attention to his surroundings as he walked, deep in his own little world, so was surprised when he heard the rhythmic thump of an axe.

His traitorous feet had brought him back to the clearing around the little cottage in the wood, with its neat garden and its confounding tenant. The man whose innocent gestures had left invisible marks on the skin of Daniel’s wrist and shoulder, that he could feel whenever he recalled their unusual meeting.

Daniel had been visited by dreams since that day by the lake, disturbed by his undisciplined memory replaying the easy way O’Neill laughed and how that hand on his shoulder had felt. His imagination supplied extra scenes that Daniel had never seriously considered before, but that made his body react in ways that he was hard pressed to ignore.

Daniel pulled up short, but it was too late. O’Neill was resting his axe on his boot and watching him. His sleeves were rolled way up his arms and his hair was dishevelled. A small smile already played across his lips.

“Good afternoon, my Lord, were you looking for me?” Jack’s voice carried easily across the distance between them.

Was he? Daniel swallowed nervously. Had he really arrived here by accident or did he crave a little more of the feeling that had left him so wistful after their meeting at the lake? Was he so lonely that he would seek out this solitary man to feel some of the connection his family seemed to find with others so easily?

“Hello, Jack,” he replied, clearing his throat before he continued. “I wasn’t particularly looking for anything, actually. Just, you know, lost in thought.”

“Ah,” Jack replied cryptically. “Nice day for it.”

Daniel smiled and moved closer. He gestured to the pile of split wood. “Don’t let me stop you.”

“I’m about done here anyways,” Jack answered, dropping the axe and taking up the neatly cut logs, stacking them against the shed that stood off to the side of his house. There was an impressive log pile stored there: Jack had been busy and Daniel tried not to notice the healthy glow about the man. “I was about to have a cup of tea. Would you like one? My lord?” 

Again Daniel noticed that Jack had to remind himself to address him correctly. Still he wasn’t sure if it was a genuine error or some small dig at him; it confused him, and that made him feel flustered and rash.

“That would be very kind.”

Jack looked pleased and surprised at Daniel’s response, and led the way into the neat little house.

Daniel took a seat at Jack’s kitchen table and looked around while Jack busied himself with making tea. It was a compact room, practical and tidy, and Daniel liked it very much for its unpretentious air of purpose. It was so at odds with the rooms in the Hall, which held such a sense of history and responsibility for him, he swore he could feel them as a tangible weight some days.

“Don’t you get lonely down here?” Daniel found himself asking as the kettle began to whistle on the stove.

“Not really,” Jack replied equably, deftly handling the boiling water. “I’m not much of one for company usually, my Lord.”

“I see.”

“So it’s a special occasion when I get a visitor out of the blue, as it were.” Jack smiled warmly and deliberately at Daniel, making him feel anxious again. And yet wasn’t this why he was here? Wasn’t this sense of instability beginning to feel like something Daniel liked? Desired?

He gave himself a mental shake. He was behaving like an idiot. Jack was simply being friendly and possibly a little more familiar than he should be, probably due to the memories they shared of being youngsters together on the estate. All this other layer of meaning was in Daniel’s head and he fought down a blush as he recalled jumbled, half-forgotten dreams that had left him achingly hard when he woke, or even worse. He stole guilty glances at Jack, knowing that the man knew nothing of his own pathetic longing or his sick imagination. 

Jack placed a plain cup and saucer in front of Daniel, giving his mind a push back into the present. He poured the strong, steaming brew from a simple brown-glazed, earthenware teapot. Daniel was struck by the homeliness once again, thinking of the elaborate silver and bone china that Eden brought his tea in. It settled his nerves somewhat.

“You take your tea like the men from the dig in Egypt did. It’s a wonder it doesn’t melt the cup,” Daniel observed with a grin, helping himself to milk.

“They know how to make a cup of tea out there,” Jack replied, taking the seat opposite.

“You’ve been to Africa?”

Jack nodded. “Algeria, Morocco, Egypt and further south.”

“Army?”

Jack nodded briefly again, not catching Daniel’s eye. Daniel recognised that kind of unwillingness to discuss wartime experiences. A couple of the fellows Daniel had known from University had returned from the Great War, their bodies sound enough, but their minds weakened by what they’d seen and done. War changed people, made them question themselves and their beliefs, and some of those things were better left alone.

“Did you ever see the Pyramids?” Daniel asked, turning the topic to lighter things. “The Sphinx?”

Jack nodded again, leaning back in his chair and watching Daniel with a glint in his eyes. “Not close up like you. Looked impressive from where I was though.”

“They’re incredible. The design and engineering alone are just unbelievable. It must have taken thousands of men to build them. We don’t even know how they would have moved blocks of that size, although I have a few ideas on that. And the internal chambers have these shafts, narrow things,” Daniel put down his cup and held his hands apart to demonstrate. “They seem to be aligned toward something specific, but…” Daniel stopped and toyed with the handle of his cup.

Jack lifted his eyebrows, tipped his head, inviting Daniel to ramble some more. “But what?” he prompted.

“But I tend to get carried away when I start talking about them.” Daniel smiled, embarrassed, idly stirring the milk in his tea before taking a sip.

“I don’t mind. It’s interesting; I’d like to go back there one day,” Jack replied, watching Daniel over the rim of his cup, his elbows planted on the table in a way that Daniel had been brought up never to do.

“Oh, as would I, but… Anyway, I’m sure you have better things to do than listen to me drone on like a half-wit.”

“Not today,” Jack said. “My day off.”

Monday. Of course. Daniel felt like an idiot all over again. He knew that O’Neill’s rest day was today, it had just slipped his mind that it was Monday again already. Daniel swallowed his tea quickly, burning his mouth, and scraped his chair back. 

“Of course it is, how rude of me. I’m sorry, it slipped my mind. I didn’t mean to take up your time on your day off. I’ll…”

“I didn’t mean that,” Jack said quickly, standing up with Daniel. He put out a hand, landing it on Daniel’s forearm and grasping lightly.

Daniel’s heart hammered in his chest and he drew in a deep, stuttered breath that he was certain Jack couldn’t help but hear. People so rarely touched him; other than a shake of hands or one of Charles’s good-natured slaps on the back, he had no opportunity for physical contact. He hadn’t missed it, hadn’t really thought about it at all until recently. Was he really so starved of attention that the grasp of a warm hand through the material of his jacket could make him blush and his heart tumble in his chest? First his wrist, then his shoulder and now his arm – was Jack deliberately finding reasons to reach out and touch him? Or was Daniel so withdrawn that these innocent gestures took on greater significance to him than they were intended to?

Daniel stared at Jack’s strong, brown hand on him, then up into his face, hoping to see some kind of answer there. 

Jack’s eyes were steady but cautious. Daniel could barely breathe. He wasn’t imagining this, surely? Jack looked determined, he knew what he was doing, he knew what this would mean if he was wrong, but he was doing it anyway.

“You don’t have to go,” he said quietly.

“I sh… should go,” Daniel stuttered at the same time, making no move to do so. 

Jack swallowed, looked as if he might say something else, and then lowered his eyes. He loosened his grip and let his hand slide down Daniel’s arm. The barest scrape of skin on skin at Daniel’s wrist before Jack let go made him shiver.

Like a spell had been broken, Daniel found he could move again, and he bolted out of the door throwing thanks and goodbyes over his shoulder in his hurry to leave. 

He walked back the way he’d come, his mind more disordered than ever. He barely noticed the wood at all, his determined stride taking him back to the house in record time. He ignored the staff’s greetings as he went, knowing how rude that was but unable to trust himself to speak. Finally reaching his suite, he dismissed Stevens, shut the door to his private drawing room and locked it, then did the same to his bedroom door.

His hands were sweaty and unsteady as he fell down on his bed. His cheeks burned and his throat felt full. Throwing one arm over his eyes, with his other hand he unbuttoned his trousers, pushed his underwear aside and took himself in a tight grip. 

He was painfully hard, his skin hot to the touch. His breath came in short, sobbing gasps as he fisted himself harshly to a shuddering, violent climax. 

As his heart and his breathing settled, his release cooling on his fingers and belly, Daniel slipped his arm away from his eyes and stared at the ceiling. 

What in the name of God was happening to him?


	3. Hurstwood Chapter Three

He tried to stay away. He threw himself into the management of the estate, trying to wring from it some sense of balance and purpose. He found time to oversee the most minor holding of the estate, even those in the north of the country that he'd never even set eyes on. He asked questions, hounding the managers in place and generally made a nuisance of himself with people who had been doing an admirable job of making money for his title long before Daniel became the Earl and who knew more about their craft than he ever would.

But as the evenings drew out into June and the clement weather held, Daniel found himself in the woods more and more often. Many of those times he came across O'Neill, and he didn't care to think too closely on how that happened. Daniel grew bolder by the day, accepting Jack's casual touches and he even began to return them, albeit awkwardly and tentatively. It was addictive. Jack's cautious smiles came more often and more readily, and were directed at him more often than not. As summer reached into every corner of the wood, the ease between them grew, and a friendship that Daniel hadn’t expected or recognized the absence of blossomed. 

The pathways that Daniel had stumbled along in the spring were now clear of undergrowth and well defined. He pretended not to notice that fallen branches and raised roots that he'd tripped on in April on his way to Jack's cottage were now curiously absent.

One evening, cooler now the sun had set, he and Jack had walked the path back to Hurstwood together, their hands brushing from time to time as they moved. As they reached the edge of the woods, Daniel turned and leaned on the fence, unwilling to leave quite yet. Jack smiled knowingly and boosted himself up to perch on the top rail, hooking his boots on the lower one for balance. This had become something of a routine over the last weeks - they would walk, then stop here beside the gate and talk or simply wait together in comfortable silence until Daniel said goodnight. Even Bramble was accustomed to their evening rambles and she would normally flop down and wait or wander off a-ways, following the scent of goodness knew what. 

Tonight Jack had settled close, his thigh and Daniel's shoulder sharing heat. Venus was visible already, burning jewel bright on the horizon. A bird clattered up from the undergrowth when Bramble spooked it, making both men jump and chuckle softly.

"Did you always want this?" Daniel asked feeling enough quiet contentment to give his customary curiosity a voice.

"That depends."

"On what?"

"On what you mean by this," Jack expanded, nudging against Daniel's shoulder.

"This," Daniel repeated with a shrug." The woods, Hurstwood, the cottage."

"I've been other places, you know."

"And yet you came back here. After everything you've seen."

Jack was quiet for a while and Daniel thought he perhaps had no answer to that, although it wasn't uncommon for Jack to simply run out of words. For all that had grown between them, Jack O’Neill was not a man to talk when he had nothing to say. 

"Thought about it, not coming back," he admitted softly when Daniel had all but given up on his response. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, bringing his face into Daniel's peripheral vision. "Decided that this place was as good as any. Familiar, comfortable, you know?"

Daniel nodded.

"And of course I had a wife back here."

It was the first time Jack had mentioned her and Daniel held his breath wondering if he had meant to. The sounds of the wood sliding into nighttime were suddenly loud around them. He turned to look out across the grounds toward the house.

Jack chuckled without humour. "I can tell from your silence that you've heard that story."

Daniel shrugged, "None of my business, I'm sure."

"A shame the rest of the county doesn't feel the same way, " Jack muttered. He sighed. "She deserved better."

Daniel searched for words that weren't banal or trite. He felt sure that Jack didn't need to hear his thoughts on this intensely personal matter. "I'm sure you didn't set out for it to end the way it did." 

"No, nothing but high hopes, but there're some things you just can't help, that you can't change about yourself. Anyway..." Jack fell silent again.

Daniel had heard the rumours, even without Silvia’s gossip and his heart ached for Jack who as such an intensely private person must surely have suffered terribly to be the subject of such local interest. As painful as the topic was, Daniel felt a small thrill of satisfaction that Jack had confided in him something so personal. It underlined their growing closeness.

A barn owl glided, silent and ghostly across the lawns of the hall and Daniel followed its path with his eyes. "I should go," he said softly, reaching to pat Jack's thigh in farewell.

Jack caught his hand, stopping Daniel in the act of reaching for the gate. His hand was warm and rough, and Daniel relished the feel of it. He watched as Jack hopped down from the fence, still loosely holding him there. Jack turned them, bringing them face to face. He let Daniel's hand fall and seemed suddenly uncertain. And still Daniel stood waiting, watching, too scared to act or speak himself, even though he saw his own longing reflected in Jack’s face. 

Jack's gaze was direct even if his actions were not. When Daniel bit his lip, betraying his nervousness, Jack's eyes flickered to his mouth making Daniel's stomach tighten with want. Then Jack's hand was in his hair, curling around his neck pulling him in for a deep, gentle but confident kiss, all heat and need.

For a moment Daniel couldn't make his hands work, then he was grasping at whatever he could reach, a fistful of shirt and his other hand spread low across Jack’s back, feeling his warmth through the thin cotton. Jack's arm slid about him, pulling them even closer together, making it impossible not to notice how long and hard Jack's body was, how good he smelled and how aroused he had become. Daniel clutched at him desperately, even as Jack soothed him and began to withdraw.

Daniel's breath shuddered softly as he let Jack prop him back against the fence and he somehow persuaded his hands to release Jack's shirt, even though that was the last thing he wanted. 

The older man stepped back, his tongue slipping out to run along his lower lip, seeming to take the taste of Daniel into his mouth with a soft smile of satisfaction.

"Goodnight... my lord," Jack murmured. He turned, whistled to Bramble and within seconds was gone back into the dark woods.

Daniel stood for a few minutes, waiting for his stupid heart to stop its erratic thumping. He strained both eyes and ears to follow Jack's path through the trees but there was nothing. He rolled his lips into his mouth, searching for the taste of that kiss, as he’d seen Jack do. It was still there, strange and perfect. Smiling to himself, he finally turned and opened the gate into the meadow.

He'd only taken a few steps before he became aware of a quick shadow breaking away from the cover of the trees a few yards away. His head still a mess of desire and confusion, it took him a moment to realise that it was a person. At first he though it was Jack and his hand came up in an attempt to touch him, on his lips a word on joyful welcome.

"Daniel." 

Elizabeth's voice. Shaken and breathy. Upset. Crying.

"What are you doing down here?" Daniel asked quickly. He wondered what had happened; it wasn’t like her to be out here so late and he moved toward her, reaching to take her hand. But she cringed away and turned her face aside, and with a sickening, falling sensation, Daniel knew.

::~::~::~::

Robert was waiting for him in his study when they returned to the house. Elizabeth had refused to speak to him at the couple of attempts he had made as the crossed the grounds. Her only concession was that she had told him they would speak when they were inside. 

He had followed her numbly, rolling words over and over in his head, trying to make some of them coherent enough to give her. He felt betrayed, guilty and horribly foolish in contrast to his momentary joy earlier. 

Elizabeth had held the door for him and allowed him to precede her before closing it firmly behind him without entering herself. Instead, here was her fiancé and Daniel's childhood friend. Daniel thought he might be physically sick right there on the Persian carpet.

"Hello, Daniel," Robert said gently. He held out a tumbler of dark liquid that Daniel took with unsteady hands and swallowed in one. Robert took the glass from him and set it aside before taking his arm and steering him to a chair. "Sit down, man. You're shaking like a leaf." 

Daniel sat and didn't protest as Robert pulled the tartan blanket from the back of the chair and laid it around his shoulders.

"Listen, old man, Elizabeth has asked me to have a word with you..."

"It wasn't… I didn't..." Daniel clamped his lips closed and shut his eyes as a dark wave of shame and despair rolled through him.

Robert sighed and Daniel heard him fall into the chair opposite.

"Look, a lot has been expected of you since Edward's loss and you've been under a huge amount of strain since you came out of the army. The title, the house, the family, it's not surprising really that you've... "

Daniel didn't open his eyes. He couldn't. He knew what Robert's face would be like - a mixture of shock and sympathy as he tried to understand. He hid his face in his hands.

"How did she...? Has Elizabeth been following me?" Daniel asked, his voice no more than a rough rasp. The sense of betrayal added another layer of misery.

"She was concerned about you and how often you'd be in the woods until late. She thought... she thought the man had some sort of hold over you. Blackmail or something. She didn't realise... what this was... until she followed you one night last week and saw you. Together."

Daniel wanted to laugh. It bubbled up desperately in his chest. Tonight was the first time Jack had kissed him, the first time they had both acknowledged what was truly between them. Elizabeth had seen nothing. Nothing at all. No more than two men talking at the gate, sharing a laugh and a story or two. There had been nothing to see until tonight and that kiss, but still she had turned to Robert, knowing better than Daniel himself where they were going. And Robert didn’t even know the worst of it yet. The irony choked him.

"I have a colleague in London, a consultant, specialises in fellows like you who have experienced more strain than they can stomach. He's a good man but we don't even need to mention... if you don't want to explain the..." Robert trailed off again before trying a new tack.

"We know you've been unhappy, Daniel. We know this isn't the life you'd have chosen. But this isn't the way to deal with that. It might feel like an escape or thrilling or dangerous. But that's not the answer, old man. You're not well. It's not right for you to... want that... in your position. I mean, I remember at Oxford, but you were a young man then. Still learning. It's different now."

Robert rose and paced back to the table. Daniel heard the chink of a decanter being opened and the splash of more whiskey into glasses. He returned, paused for a moment beside Daniel, then placed the glass at Daniel's elbow with a quiet thump.

"We'll drive up in the morning. Stevens has packed for you already. We told Charles you have some legal matters to attend to. He doesn't need to know."

Robert waited a couple of minutes in silence but Daniel had nothing to say.

A hand briefly squeezed his shoulder. "It's for the best, Daniel. Some time away from here. A bit of perspective."

Daniel nodded but couldn't bring himself to say thank you.

"Is there anything... did you want to write a note for... him? If you don't want to... the Estate Manager could dismiss..."

"No," Daniel said finally and flatly. He lifted his head to the ceiling and blinked a couple of times. "No thank you, Robert. You've done enough. I will resolve that situation myself. If you could just make sure that this is kept as quiet as possible, I'd be grateful."

Robert looked at Daniel carefully. "No one knows, Daniel. Only myself and Elizabeth. Not even the chap in London. You don't have to worry on that account." He nodded and said a quiet goodnight, leaving Daniel alone once more.

It wasn’t until a few minutes later that Daniel realised it hadn’t even crossed his mind to deny it.

************

June slipped into July and took the warm weather with it. The grey skies seemed to hang over England sometimes giving way to brief sunshine, but always too late in the day to be useful. Three weeks in the city had been more than enough for Daniel to realise that his mental state was not going to be solved by discussing his wartime experiences, taking mind altering drugs or analysing his relationship with his mother. He'd taken himself home the following weekend, accepted the happiness of his family over his return, smiled reassuringly for his sister and firmly ignored anything beyond the edge of the formal gardens. 

A kind of tension had fallen over the Hall, as if the clouds had sucked all the animation from its inhabitants. Daniel knew that this was due in no small part to his own somewhat erratic behaviour. He sometimes caught Elizabeth watching him when he became too quiet or remote, but he struggled to find a way to hide the tangled mess his thoughts had become.

Daniel found himself at a turning point. He’d known for some time that his disinterest in women wasn’t merely for lack of finding ‘the one.’ He thought he’d made his peace with the idea of doing his duty, finding a girl who he could like, and maybe even learn to love despite his lack of physical desire. He only needed an heir, and he had no intention of misleading his bride into thinking that she would be the love of his life in order to procure one. No, it had to be an honest, reasoned decision on any woman’s part to take him on. But so far he’d failed to find any woman he thought he could enter into such an arrangement with.

As to where his own desires lay, he’d long since acknowledged that his tastes ran to more masculine company. At University he’d had a couple of affairs with men who had since gone on to marry and lead respectable lives, and yet he found himself unable or unwilling to do the same. 

After Oxford he’d travelled extensively in Europe, and he’d found occasional like-minded men with whom to spend a night or a weekend when the mood had taken him. In Egypt, he’d been too busy and absorbed by his work to give much thought to the desires of his body, and found that he hadn’t really missed the soulless trysts of his European tour. 

And then the war had changed everything. Almost overnight his privileged position and his passion for knowledge had been replaced by duty. As an officer, he’d had greater liberty than the rank and file, but still he’d found little time for distractions like sex. Once again, he’d found it easy to compartmentalise his life, turn his mind to the job in hand without the distractions of physical pleasure. His grasp of languages had meant that he’d been useful to the war effort, but this usually kept him away from the front line. Unlike Edward. 

Daniel’s broken father had died shortly after the news of his eldest son's death in the last days of the war, and before Daniel had had the time to truly accept the implications of being Viscount Hurstwood, the new Earl Ashdown in waiting.

Now Hurstwood was in his care and so were the lives of those who called it home. His life was filled with the expectations of his family, the fertility of his soil, the performance of his investments, the prosperity of his tenants and the welfare of his staff. It was his duty and his honour to keep this estate in trust for the next generation; he understood this, but he felt no joy in it.

In months, the only place he'd felt alive and connected lay in a little cottage in the woods with a neat garden and a well-stacked woodpile. Jack O’Neill had reawakened desires Daniel had thought easily ignorable if not gone completely. He had never had to struggle to repress such emotions before, but he’d never felt such a compulsion, known such fascination and it left him feeling restless and ashamed.

Plans were taking shape for Elizabeth’s upcoming marriage, indeed Silvia and Elizabeth had put aside their former indifference and bonded over nurseries and bouquets in a kind of united femininity that bewildered Daniel and amused Charles. Daniel knew that his own pensive mood was dampening what should have been a time of happiness and joyful expectation at Hurstwood, and he hated himself for it.

Out of ideas, he took himself back up to London. There was no need for his family to suffer his fit of melancholy.

~~::~~::~~::~~:

 

Daniel entered the library of his club, pleased to see that the room was currently deserted. He flicked through the publications on the table, looking for the most recent Antiquaries Journal, hoping to take it elsewhere to avoid meeting anyone he knew. He was about to scurry back to the safety of his room, journal in hand when he was greeted by name. 

"Daniel Jackson, good lord! What a treat." He found himself grasped by the hand, slapped on the shoulder and shaken about to the extent that it almost dislodged his reading glasses.

The Right Honourable Richard Wharham was a friend from Daniel's Oxford days who Daniel remembered as being neither particularly right nor honourable. He'd been on the edges of Daniel's group of friends, an amiable chap with a reputation for being rather indiscreet and somewhat too generous with his time and affections. He'd made an unsubtle pass at Daniel once which Daniel had had to be quite blunt about rejecting, but the man hadn't taken it to heart and remained on good terms with him until they'd lost touch after graduating.

"How the devil are you?" he asked without waiting for a response. "I heard about your brother, bloody sorry to hear that. Terrible thing, terrible."

Daniel nodded his thanks and smiled. "A few years back now but we still miss him. How are you, Richard? What are you up to these days?"

"Oh, you know, this and that. Can't keep a good man down, eh? Escaped the ball and chain for a few days in the city. Marianne is in the family way again, makes her damn moody, I can tell you. Still, gives me a chance to stretch the old legs a little, step out a bit, you know?"

Daniel nodded, but had little idea of what the man was talking about.

"So how's life in Sussex? Keeping you busy? I guess you've got your work cut out keeping that bloody great estate of yours in check."

"It's a full-time job," Daniel admitted.

"I'll bet, I'll bet," Richard agreed. "And what about your family?"

"Er, they're fine," Daniel said uncertainly.

"How many do you have now?"

"How many what?"

"Children, old man, children!" Richard laughed and shook his head at Daniel's confusion.

"Oh, well none. I'm not married," Daniel explained.

Richard seemed taken aback and Daniel braced himself for the familiar questions.

"Good lord, man. You need to get onto that you know. We're none of us getting any younger and I remember you as being a rather a hot-blooded sort when we were at St. Bridget's."

"Well," Daniel began awkwardly not really knowing how or where to begin with a reply.

Richard got an unhealthy look in his eye as he grasped Daniel's sleeve and steered him to a couple of chairs in the furthest corner of the library. 

"Look, we're friends, Daniel. We're chaps who have something in common. If it's a question of tastes," Richard began in a conspiratorial tone that made Daniel's skin crawl. Richard waved off Daniel's protests, talking over the top of him. "You're not the only chap to have particular... requirements. There are ways and means, you know."

Daniel wished with all his might that the floor might open up and let him pass straight to hell, which, he felt, would be infinitely preferable to having this conversation.

"Take Marianne. Lovely girl, good stock, happy as a clam with the house and the children, dinner parties, the odd trip to the theatre and a generous allowance. Never even asks what I do when I come up here. Doesn't need to know, eh?" He smiled knowingly at Daniel. "There are places where fellows with certain..."

"Oh, Richard, for God's sake," Daniel hissed.

"Requirements, Daniel," he persisted. "Certain requirements. These places cater for such things. All done very tastefully and discreetly, you understand. Nothing seedy. Problem solved, you see? Find a good girl, settle a brace of offspring on her to keep the ancestors happy and come and claim your reward for doing your duty. I know a few places, if you're interested, young chaps, healthy, you know?"

Daniel breathed deeply as Richard finally ran out of words. A sudden cool clarity had lodged itself in his mind as he listened to his well-meaning friend. 

"That's not what I'm looking for, Richard," he said with an apologetic smile and stood. 

Sex wasn't what he wanted, at least not sex without a connection. It hadn't really ever been, even in his most promiscuous phase. What he'd been experiencing then was his lust for life, not his lust for other men. He'd been so giddy with his freedom and all the choices laid out before him, he'd celebrated with a glut of sensation, tasting and touching and feeling, fucking whoever caught his eye, eating the most elaborate foods, drinking to excess and learning, always learning. It was a time he'd always remember with affection, but it wasn't who he was now.

A kernel of an idea sprouted in his mind - a rationalisation of his attraction to Jack. It frightened Daniel as it made connections, even as it began to make clear to him why he felt this way. He squashed it down, unwilling to follow it to its inevitable conclusion.

He put a hand out to Richard who watched him with undisguised scepticism. "It was good to see you, Richard. My regards to your family."


	4. Hurstwood Chapter Four

Daniel returned a week before the wedding, several steps closer to understanding, but no closer to a resolution. He put aside his unquiet and resolved to be happy for his sister and her new husband. 

He got home late and the household had already retired for the night. Stevens, who’d accompanied him to town, had called ahead, so his rooms were ready and aired. He went immediately to his room and slept deeply.

The weather had relented, at least. The grey of July had melted away into a warm and sunny August, punctuated with thunderstorms. All the fields had been harvested in good time, and already the chestnut trees were browning and heavy with conkers and the brambles bore small, shiny blackberries. September looked set to be mild this year, and Daniel looked forward to it. London in August had been stifling, and more than once Daniel had caught himself yearning for the cool, shady paths of the woods at Hurstwood before he’d remembered that was why he’d taken himself to the city in the first place.

He went into the estate office before breakfast, knowing he’d risen too early for the rest of the family to join him. He was most surprised to find Charles there, mulling over some papers with a look of intense concentration on his face.

“Good morning,” Daniel said quietly, so as not to surprise his brother.

Charles startled anyway and looked up with surprise, a guilty grin spreading across his face. “Daniel,” he said, his smile turning genuine, “glad you got back alright.”

Daniel rounded the desk and accepted the handshake and the anticipated slap on the back with good grace. Charles began to move to clear the desk, but Daniel grabbed him by the shoulder and pressed him back down into the chair with a protesting creak of wood. 

“What do we have?” he asked, leaning over his brother's shoulder. 

“Oh, I wasn’t… that is, I don’t…”

Daniel looked at the estate map spread out on the desk and at the neat rows of balances in the ledger propped open beside it.

“Perry’s Lane Farm?” Daniel hazarded. “Is there a problem?”

“Not really. It was something Tom said,” Charles began reluctantly. “About the lower fields staying wet well into the summer?”

Daniel nodded for him to continue, wondering that Charles even knew where Perry’s Lane was. 

“Well, I was thinking that the reason it gets too much water is that all of the lake drains off toward there now, when it used to go…” Charles put a finger at the far end of the lake on the map.

“Over the weir down by the yew tree walk. I was down there a few months ago,” Daniel began, pushing aside the memory of Jack’s naked back, pale in the spring sunshine. “It must have been some years since the thing worked properly. It’s silted up and almost dammed by fallen trees.”

“Exactly. I think that’s what’s causing the flooding in the fields over here, because Old Tom said they never used to be that wet.” Charles tapped a pencil on Perry’s Lane Farm, his eyes scanning the apparent distance between the two points. “Be a shame to lose that much good grazing.”

“You’re right. It would. Do you want to handle it, then?” Daniel asked, not looking at his brother but keeping his eyes firmly on the map.

“Oh, well, all right. If you think I… if you want me to,” Charles said cautiously. Charles had a love for Hurstwood that Daniel could only wonder at. To him it was more than a place or a balance sheet. To him it was his family, as dear to him as Daniel and Elizabeth were. Maybe it was time for Daniel to give him some credit for that and to see Charles as the man he had become instead of the boy he'd been. 

“I’d like that very much,” Daniel replied with a smile and a slap of his own on Charles’s shoulder. This was an unexpected but very welcome revelation. Perhaps Daniel had underestimated his younger brother, or maybe Charles had simply never had the opportunity to participate in the running of the Hall before. Either way, this was something Daniel could fix and he grasped it gladly.

 

~~::~~::~~::~~::~~::~~

“Daniel, have you got ten minutes?” Charles asked, coming into the library a few days later. He had been busy with the weir project since Daniel's return, purposeful and efficient in a way that Daniel hadn't noticed before. 

Daniel put down his book, feeling a little guilty. He’d come in here after lunch to hide from Elizabeth’s clucking about the wedding, which was becoming all-consuming. With three days to go, the whole household was working toward the big day with extra kitchen staff drafted in from the village, the gardeners clipping and trimming and raking everything to within an inch of its life and the household staff everywhere, at all hours of the day, cleaning things that Daniel thought looked perfectly adequate to begin with.

Charles led the way into the estate office, explaining what they had decided to do at the weir. Daniel hadn’t even realised that anyone was in there until he heard the scrape of chairs as the assembled men rose. 

Daniel smiled when he recognised Andrews, the estate manager, and shook hands with Joe Ellis, the farmer down at Perry’s Lane. He turned to the last member of their group and felt his stomach drop. Jack O’Neill looked at him with a steady eye but none of his usual sly humour.

“Good afternoon, Lord Ashdown,” he said quietly with a short nod.

“O’Neill,” Daniel managed to reply before seating himself at the table willing his hands to stop their slight trembling and his heart settle. He told himself it was the surprise but the warmth staining his cheeks said otherwise. 

Charles quickly took up the conversational slack, explaining that the gamekeeper had mentioned that he recalled his father talking about the weir, although he had no memory of it working during his lifetime.

Daniel only nodded whenever Charles looked at him and tried to concentrate on the conversation being carried on around him. Jack, too, was very quiet, only answering when spoken to, and then in as few words as possible. 

Daniel's head was a mess and he'd given up trying to resolve his dilemma in any way that was even slightly possible. He sleepwalked through his days with a combination of familiarity and noncommittal answers. At night he played their kiss over and over again in his mind, and his stupid heart still lurched every time. He hadn't been down to the woods or the cottage since his conversation with Robert, and he told himself he was avoiding temptation, but the truth was more complex than that. He was ashamed that he hadn't told Jack he was leaving, ashamed that he hadn't had the guts to finish this insanity face to face. He was afraid to be alone with Jack again, and afraid of what he might do but more afraid that whatever understanding between them was now at an end. He didn't hear a tenth of the discussion he was supposed to be participating in. 

Eventually the men stood, shaking hands all round and taking their leave. Jack shook Daniel’s hand without a flicker of the wry smile he usually wore and followed Charles out.

Daniel walked to the window and waited. After a few minutes he saw Jack crossing the park down toward the wood gate, Bramble loping at his heels. He stopped at the gate and turned back toward the house for a long moment, then turned and was lost in the trees.

::~~::~~::~~::~~::

The morning of the wedding dawned grey and cool, but by the time it was the hour to leave for the church, the wind had blown strongly enough to leave a bright blue sky, flocked with scudding white clouds.

Elizabeth, after a week of manic behaviour, uncharacteristic histrionics and several changes of mind, looked serene now, waiting on the stairs for the carriage to come around. Daniel had been surprised by her choice of transportation, but hadn’t murmured for fear of another fit of tears.

With most of the staff on the drive, waiting to see Lady Elizabeth off, it was quiet in the hall for which Daniel was thankful. He felt uncomfortable in his dress uniform, but still felt it a better option than morning dress; it didn’t stop him fiddling with his sword though.

“You look beautiful, Beth,” Daniel said softly, taking his sister’s hand and leading her down the last few steps. Daniel didn’t know what to call the colour of the silk she’d finally decided on, he’d been confused by the oyster, champagne and ivory conversation, but whatever it was she’d settled on, it suited her well.

The carriage was announced and Elizabeth smiled nervously. Daniel had no idea what his father would have said at this time, the man always seemed to have something profound to grace moments such as these, but he felt that if he meant what he said, he couldn’t go far wrong.

“Always be happy, Elizabeth,” he murmured to her, offering her his arm. It was his best piece of advice, and one he deeply wished for his sister to follow. He started to step forward, but she didn’t move. He turned to her in confusion.

“You know, I could say the same thing to you,” she replied, turning her face to him.

Daniel looked at his sister, her cool grey eyes holding his.

“Beth,” he began slowly, his heart thudding sickeningly in his chest. Surely now was not the moment for this conversation, one he had been carefully avoiding. The hall at Hurstwood boasted many portraits, gracing the walls of the wide, wooden staircase and Daniel could feel the eyes of every one of his ancestors on him now.

“Daniel,” she mimicked and smiled gently. She chewed her lip like she had as a child. “I'm sorry about... I don’t understand it, but... I only wanted you to be happy."

Daniel’s heart clenched with love for her even though he was certain that she wouldn't be able to understand, even if he explained forever more. “It’s not that easy,” he sighed and squeezed her fingers.

“The best things never are, that’s what father used to say," she reminded him.

Daniel laughed softly at her, not really understanding her intent, but glad of this olive branch between them. “What makes you so wise? Does Robert know what he’s letting himself in for?”

“Possibly not. I suppose we’d better go before he changes his mind.”

The assembled staff curtsied and bowed as Daniel and Elizabeth came out of the house and descended the steps to the waiting carriage. Daniel helped his sister in then climbed up beside her. He kept his eyes forward, letting Elizabeth smile and wave to the household as the coach set off, and only at the last moment before they turned the corner did he look back to catch sight of Jack, at the end of the line, watching after them. 

~~::~~::~~::~~::~~::~~

Daniel’s feet ached and his voice was hoarse. He couldn't count the number of times he'd laughingly made excuses for his own unmarried, childless state. People were ridiculously over-invested in his own future, as if they had a right to an opinion. He’d drunk toasts and made speeches and danced with as many of the single girls his aunts had dangled before him as he could stomach. And now he really needed some air – the scent of the chrysanthemums in every room was making him feel quite ill. He knew his smile was wearing thinner by the second and it would only take one more ill judged word to make him snap. 

He slipped through the door to his study and from there out of the French windows and into the garden. It was cooling quickly now and most people had drifted indoors, but a few hardy souls still wandered around the formal gardens, lit up especially for the party. 

Daniel stuck close by the house, staying in the shadows, making for the steps, which led down toward the parkland and an escape. The smell of tobacco smoke mingled with the crisp evening air.

"It really is too bad about Ashdown."

Daniel froze. The voices were close by, maybe even the other side of the hedge he was stealing the shadow from to hide himself. 

"How do you mean?"

"Cigarette?" The sound of someone accepting and lighting up was loud in the evening stillness, the music from the house only a murmur now. Daniel craned his neck carefully, trying to see where the voices were coming from.

"Well, the chap's a bit of an odd-sort. Nice enough, but not what this place needs, you know? Did you know his brother?"

"Yes, I met him once or twice. Good man, Edward. Straightforward, no messing." 

"Yes, just like his father. This place was in his blood. Daniel's more like his mother. Did you know her family?" 

"Knew of them. Bit alternative, what?"

"I should say so. All those girls! A couple of them ran off and married Americans, you know. Constance was the most suitable, of course, but you can't hide a temperament like that. It's in the blood."

"Do you think he's got a bit too much de Clare about him?" 

"Who knows? It's not his wife about to pop, is it? That's baby brother! Daniel's an eligible young chap, but you never see him in town, do you? Head in the clouds, that one. Ivory towers, you know?"

Another voice hailed them and Daniel took his chance to slip away around the side of the house, his stomach rolling and his mouth dry. Better to be seen now than to wait and hear more. He didn't even recognise the voices. He kept his head down, certain that if anyone looked at him they would see him for the liar he was. They would see his failure. It was surely only a matter of time before someone actually said the words he'd been telling himself since that fateful day; he wasn't worthy, he was a fraud, he was an embarrassment and a fool to think he could fill his father's or brother's shoes. Even his sister’s words in the hall had been more insightful than his own poor effort. 

There was no cover on this side of the house until you got to the woods, so Daniel made directly for the gate as fast as he could, heartsick and desperate to escape. Of course he knew the woods were a poor choice, but at the same time they were exactly where he wanted to be. He was sick of fighting himself over this, sick of pretending. It seemed he wasn’t fooling anyone anyway.

He sighed in relief when he slipped through the gate and under the cover of the trees, only then turning to look back at Hurstwood. The house looked very gay and festive from here. Lights shone from every window and even at this distance he could still hear the faint sounds of the celebrations. Daniel was reminded suddenly of parties his parents had hosted before the war. Everything had seemed so much simpler then.

“Hiding again, my lord?”

Daniel was surprised to find that he wasn’t surprised by Jack’s voice behind him.

He breathed deeply, calming himself and turned slowly. It was too dark to see clearly beneath the trees. “Yes,” he replied simply, too tired to play games. “It’s always quiet down here. I can… I like it here.”

Jack was silent for long moments, his expression masked by the shadows. “Come on then, if you’re coming,” he murmured finally.

Daniel watched the man tread the indistinct path with utter confidence, not bothering to see if he was following or not. For once, Jack was without Bramble and Daniel wondered at that as he hurried to keep up.

It got even darker as they went deeper into the woods. Daniel was certain this wasn’t the path to Jack’s house and wondered where they could be heading.

He felt his misery lessen as he walked; he knew it would be there to greet him when he returned, but here he could set it down for a while. He could take a breath here, be himself and enjoy that feeling rather than battling against his own inadequacies and his struggles to do his duty to his name. So perhaps this relief he felt was something smaller, something to do with himself rather than with Hurstwood. That thought pleased Daniel greatly; for a time he had thought that Daniel Jackson and Hurstwood were indistinguishable, one from the other. He’d certainly thought others felt that way. 

After a few minutes of following Jack’s footfalls, Daniel was certain that he couldn’t possibly know which way they were going in the darkness. He was about to say so when Jack stopped. Daniel’s eyes, slowly adjusting to the low light realised that they had reached the brooding sheds.

Jack pulled open a door with a protesting squeak of hinges, and Daniel followed him into the little hut silently. Jack moved around for a few moments in the confined space, somehow never touching Daniel before he heard the familiar scratch of a match, then a flare of light made him blink. It settled quickly into the steady glow of a storm lantern, giving him enough light to look around.

It was smaller than he'd imagined with a single bed, a wood burning stove, a table, a chair and very little else.

“What’s this place?”

“When the chicks are just hatched I have to stay handy for a few days,” Jack explained, throwing the match away and hanging the lamp from a hook in the ceiling. “It’s dry enough in here. Gets cold though if the fire goes out.”

Jack sat down on the rough green blankets of the bed and signalled for Daniel to take the chair. 

Now he was here, Daniel didn't know what to say. He felt foolish and awkward as the silence stretched on, just as he had when they'd met again a few months ago.

“Has it been a happy day?" Jack finally asked softly.

“Yes, it has.” Daniel realised it was true as he said it. Despite the debutantes and the aunts and the idiots on the terrace and the crowds, it had been a good day. Nothing could have marred today for Elizabeth, and Daniel would have known if she’d been anything but happy. As it was she’d smiled at Robert all afternoon, and it had been the most open, genuine expression he’d ever seen on his sister’s face. 

“Will they stay here? Lady Elizabeth and her husband?”

Daniel tried not to let his disappointment sound in his voice. “No. Robert has a house on his parent’s land in Derbyshire. They’ll be living there.”

“Hmm,” Jack said and tipped his head back to thump softly against the wall. He drew up his knees and put his feet on the edge of the bed and rested his arms across them. “It's a long way. You’ll miss her.”

Daniel didn’t need to answer. It hadn’t really been a question. Instead he listened to the quiet sounds of the woods, a distant fox yowling, the wind, still fresh, sweeping through the trees with whispers and hisses.

“Why did you bring me here, Jack?” Daniel asked.

Jack rolled his head and looked at his guest for a moment. “You wanted a place to hide,” he shrugged. “Daniel,” he added after a moment. He sounded as if he was trying the name out in his mouth, deliberately seeing how it fit. 

Daniel’s stomach swooped, a slow, stalling roll in his gut that set up answering tingles in his arms and legs. “It’s not your job to save me,” he murmured.

“No, it’s not,” Jack said quietly. Significantly. He gazed at Daniel with an unnerving directness but said no more. 

His eyes - brown, Daniel reminded himself – were mostly in shadow, and the warm light of the lantern made his hair gold where it was lighter. Daniel realised that Jack was waiting for him to make a choice. Not for the future of Hurstwood, not for the lineage; this was for himself. Would he take this path or not?

Jack’s eyes followed him as Daniel rose. It was only a single step to the little bed, but it seemed so very far. This was different, something Daniel hadn’t done before. This wasn’t a boy’s crush or a bored young man’s idle pastime. This was real, a recognition of who Jack was and an acceptance of his own desire for what he was offering.

When Daniel stroked a hesitant hand through Jack’s hair, Jack’s own hand came up to meet his and tangle their fingers together, pulling him in and down, quick and desperate now.

Jack’s lips were soft and cool as they met his own; Daniel could taste the night air on them, but when he opened his mouth it was warm and Daniel fell into him gladly. Somehow they arranged themselves so they lay, half reclined on the narrow bed. Jack’s hands had found their way beneath the material of Daniel’s jacket and shirt, and traced patterns on the skin of his back and sides. His hands were smoother than Daniel had expected when his imagination had taken him to places such as this. 

“Just a man then, behind the house and the title and the land?” Jack muttered against Daniel’s lips.

Daniel’s throat was too full to answer, so he closed his eyes and nodded.

“Thought so,” Jack whispered and licked Daniel’s mouth open again.

His own hands trembled as he skimmed them over Jack’s shoulders and up into his hair. The raw energy behind their kisses stunned Daniel; he’d never imagined that kissing could be so intense. Previous lovers had always been most perfunctory or had omitted kisses altogether, leading Daniel to believe that this was an unmanly action, but Jack was teaching him how wrong he’d been. It was like all this stored energy had been brought to bear on Daniel and found expression in the touch of their lips. 

Daniel clung to Jack, trying to express with his hands how happy he was to be here, in this moment. He allowed Jack to pull him down further, so they lay with Jack beneath him, their legs tangled. When Jack pressed subtly up into Daniel’s hips, Daniel couldn’t suppress the groan or the full-body shudder as he felt the hardness of Jack’s erection trapped between them. 

Suddenly he was hungrier than he could ever recall having been. He was greedy, dizzy with the choice he’d made, drunk with the knowledge that this was just for him, not Hurstwood or the family or any of the hundred little problems that filled his days.

He rolled fully onto Jack, pinning his hips with his own and settling between his legs. He ground down against Jack, watching as his eyes closed at the overload of sensation. He moved slowly, rolling his hips and dragging their stiff cocks against each other, the material of their trousers just another layer of friction.

Jack planted his heels on the bed and found enough leverage to push up, building together a perfect rhythm, too good to stop, too fast to last. Jack came first, his groan accompanied by his hands on Daniel’s arse, pressing them closer together. The feeling of Jack’s cock pulsing against his own was too much for Daniel and his own release was two ragged, desperate thrusts later.

As Daniel came down, Jack pressed kisses to his eyes, his forehead and his lips, coordinated in a way Daniel could only aspire to. They rolled to lie side by side, panting softly on the musty smelling blanket. Daniel closed his eyes, the last of the aftershocks still leaving him heavy and incapable. The sounds of the night were loud, the fox still serenading and the wind stirring in the leaves. Already Daniel could feel autumn at the threshold.

Slowly as his mind cleared, Daniel’s thoughts returned to the house and how his guests might be saying their goodnights now, how it would fall to his younger brother and his newly-wed sister to ensure that everyone had what they needed and to sort out any of the petty problems that invariably arose at these kind of events. Guilt began to take residence where his selfish desire had been only minutes before.

When he opened his eyes, Jack was already watching him, his gaze level and non-judgemental. Daniel awkwardly untangled himself from Jack’s grasp, leaving the other man sprawled on the bed while he quickly stood and made a rather pathetic attempt to make himself look decent. 

“I have to go,” Daniel said, neither an explanation nor an apology. 

Jack simply nodded. He made no effort to move or to hide what they had done. His cheeks were flushed and his lips red with kissing. His thighs were still sprawled apart, the brown of his trousers too dark to show the dampness that Daniel knew was there, that he could smell. 

Wishing he could be the kind of man who could lean in and kiss a lover goodbye, or that he could find some words to explain the state of his chaotic mind, Daniel turned and left without looking back.


	5. Hurstwood Chapter Five

The first snow came early in December, and with it ten days of biting cold which prevented a thaw. When the snow finally disappeared it left behind a world of tired greens and browns. Spring had never felt further away. 

Daniel had become ever more taciturn, blaming his sister’s relocation for his dark moods. Charles and Silvia prepared for the birth of their firstborn with less fuss than Daniel had expected, and it shamed him to think that it was his own mood that had caused their sobriety. He barely acknowledged the quiet air of anticipation within the household as the countdown to Christmas began. Thankfully, his brother had insisted on a family-only celebration, citing Silvia’s fatigue as a reason. This was the only silver-lining as far as Daniel was concerned, especially as Elizabeth and Robert wouldn’t be visiting until the new year.

Daniel was surprised one morning to find his brother with a fistful of bills, leafing through them as he refilled his teacup.

“What’s that you’ve got there?” Daniel asked, too intrigued to be subtle.

“Uh… it’s the invoices for the food for the party,” Charles replied, looking slightly furtive, a face Daniel recognised from boyhood indiscretions.

“Party?”

“For the locals and staff? On Christmas Eve? We do it every year, Daniel.” Charles watched Daniel carefully, tea in one hand, papers in the other. “You seemed… distracted, so I found out from Eden what was needed, Silvia sent out the invitations and… well…” 

“Of course, yes. Good. Thank you for that,” Daniel muttered, unable to believe that he’d forgotten a tradition he’d been a part of his whole life. The Christmas party at Hurstwood was a byword in the county for how a good employer treated its staff. Scaled down since the war, it was still an important fixture in the life of the estate.

Daniel glanced at the date on that morning’s Times – the 21st of December. He pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed again.

“We’ve kept it simple this year with Silvia being so tired all the time and Elizabeth not being here and all,” Charles elaborated and Daniel felt a rush of affection for his brother along with an uncomfortable shame about how often he’d dismissed him for an intellectual lightweight. Although Charles Jackson was no scholar or original thinker, he was a good man who took his duty seriously. He also seemed to be making a better job of running Hurstwood than Daniel was these days.

“Thank you,” Daniel said with genuine relief that made Charles smile. 

“I think the staff would be glad if you made an appearance, old man, if that’s alright,” Charles said gently.

“Of course. Just tell me where to be,” Daniel replied quickly.

“And perhaps you could dispense their gifts. It was something father always did. I think it means a lot to them.”

“Absolutely. Do I need to…?”

“It’s all in hand. Eden and Andrews have made sure I haven’t made a hash of anything.”

“I’m sure you wouldn’t have, Charles,” Daniel protested, but his brother merely grinned at him.

“Oh, I’m sure I would have,” he said good-naturedly, taking his cup to the door.

“Charles?” Daniel asked, stopping his brother in the act of leaving the room. He looked back at Daniel expectantly.

“I… thank you,” Daniel managed, knowing how inadequate that was. Somehow, while he’d been wrestling with his own personal demons, Charles had quietly become someone he could trust and rely on.

Charles smiled. “Not at all. And, Daniel… I know this isn’t what you’d imagined for your life, and I know how hard that must be, but… well, I’m here. If you need me. I can help with…whatever.”

“The Kearns sisters?” Daniel asked with a wry smile, overwhelmed by his brother’s perception and humbled by his goodness.

“God, no!” Charles sighed dramatically and they both laughed. 

~~::~~::~~::~~

The house held an air of expectation similar to the one Daniel remembered from his childhood, when extravagant parties had been thrown by his parents on a monthly basis. The scent of pine pervaded the entire house courtesy of the huge tree that had been duly felled and trimmed and set up in the hall.

An excited hush had fallen as darkness had arrived at four in the afternoon, and now as the clock struck the half hour before seven it reached a level that Daniel felt he could practically reach out and touch. 

He tied his tie in the mirror, briefly missing Stevens to whom he’d given the night off, and tried to recall the name of each employees spouse. Finally giving it up as a bad job he went downstairs and checked that all was ready in the dining room where the tables were groaning under the weight of the buffet that had been prepared earlier.

The fires in the reception rooms all blazed merrily, already fed by unseen hands and Daniel despaired of finding something useful to do, so he took himself off to the library for a glass of fortifying brandy.

Silvia and Charles were already waiting in the hall by the time Daniel returned, Charles’s arm curled protectively around his wife’s shoulders as she rested her hand on her considerable bump. Every time Daniel thought she couldn’t actually get any rounder without exploding, she did. The poor girl looked uncomfortable much of the time now, but somehow never lost her sense of humour.

Daniel crossed to them now, kissing his sister-in-law with sudden fondness and giving his brother a slap on the back that rocked him on his feet.

“Hello, you two. Are we all set?” he asked.

Both Charles and Silvia beamed at him with pride, making Daniel feel uncomfortably indulged and rather ashamed. The first guests arrived at that moment, saving Daniel from reflecting on his own recent behaviour too closely. 

The next hour was a blur of handshakes and pleasantries that left Daniel tired, but strangely pleased. Silvia and Charles had split up and were circulating among their guests, local tradesmen and estate workers, talking animatedly and doing a good job of being gracious hosts. Daniel held up his end, but was keenly grateful not to have had to do this alone. 

He was helping himself to a pastry and a glass of wine in a quiet moment when he became aware of Jack O’Neill across the room. Jack stood with a couple of the tenant farmers, nodding as they talked and nursing a glass of ale. His eyes found Daniel and held for a moment before passing over him toward the door.

Daniel had known that he wouldn’t be able to avoid the man forever, in fact he hadn’t even counted on the three months it had been since the night of Elizabeth’s wedding. He’d tried to rehearse this moment in his mind, but hadn’t been able to face the horrible possibilities for long enough to formulate a plan.

But it seemed that Jack had, for while Daniel stood like an idiot and blinked, Jack slipped a couple of words into the conversation around him provoking warm laughter.

Jack’s eyes found his own again, and then, to Daniel’s surprise, he smiled gently before turning back to his companions. At that moment the Head Gardener, a venerable old gentleman whose hearing was almost non-existent came up to Daniel and began a discourse on the relative merits of poplar trees. By the time he had finished, and Daniel looked back, Jack had gone.

~~::~~::~~::~~::~~

Elizabeth and Robert’s arrival for their new year visit was most welcome. Silvia was under strict orders from the doctor to rest, turning Charles into a bag of solicitous nerves whenever she was up and a jittery headache for Daniel the rest of the time. Elizabeth had always been a calming influence on the family, and so it was now. With the sensible, softly spoken Robert at her side, she quietly took charge of the soon-to-be-parents, distracted Charles and reassured Silvia, giving Daniel a chance to slip out of the house on a blustery, wet January morning.

The woods were quiet other than the creak of branches tossing in the fitful wind, but Daniel still felt soothed as he traced the slippery path down to Keeper’s Cottage, made unfamiliar by the season. Stripped bare by winter’s grasping fingers, the trees took on new meaning for Daniel as he walked. The oaks and beeches were almost harshly skeletal, while the birches’ silver bark and myriad twigs had a strange softness to them.

The wind tugged the smoke from the chimney when Daniel arrived at the hill overlooking the little cottage, sending it across the clearing instead of up into the sky. Daniel stood for a while, catching his breath and ordering his thoughts. There was no one about this morning, and Daniel wondered if he’d come down in vain to make his peace with the man he’d thought of so often since their meeting last spring.

An especially icy gust of wind brought a sudden squall of heavy rain hissing through the bare branches and clattering onto the leaf litter at Daniel’s feet. It spurred him into action, and he made his way down the path to the cottage.

The dog barked when Daniel knocked, earning itself a grumble of displeasure from Jack that Daniel heard through the wood of the front door. 

Jack blinked at Daniel for a long moment where he stood on the doorstep before taking him by the arm and pulling him into the house. Even in the minute or two that Daniel had been out in the rain, it had soaked him, rivulets of water snaking from his hair down beneath his collar.

Jack took charge, pulling off Daniel’s jacket and hanging it to dry in front of the fire, then fetching a towel and handing it silently to Daniel who scrubbed his hair and face and swiped ineffectively at his neck, now chilled and uncomfortable from his wet shirt collar.

“Hello, Jack,” Daniel said finally, his words almost lost when another wave of rain drummed on the windows, startlingly loud.

“Good morning, my Lord,” Jack replied, no inflection to his voice at all.

Daniel turned his face to the floor and shook his head a little, his weeks of indecision and silence coming home to roost. He knew he shouldn't but he craved Jack’s understanding, his forgiveness. From the formal address, Daniel guessed Jack didn't feel he deserved it.

Jack sighed a little and shifted uncomfortably. “Daniel,” he corrected himself softly, and took the towel from Daniel’s unresisting hands. “Let me make you some tea. You’re shivering.”

Daniel couldn’t deny it – his shoulders trembled and his stomach jumped in time but he knew it wasn’t the soaking that had done it. He toed out of his dripping boots in deference to Jack’s clean floor, propped them in the grate and followed him into the kitchen on stockinged feet.

Bramble wagged her tail from her basket beside the stove, but didn’t rouse herself to greet Daniel.

Daniel leaned a hip against the table and watched Jack make tea once again, his movements short and economical as he worked in comfortable silence. It was strangely soothing, homely in a way Daniel hadn’t ever really known. 

“Let’s sit by the fire. You look like you need warming up some,” Jack murmured, leading the way back into the little sitting room with a tray of tea things.

Daniel took one armchair and Jack the other. He could see a book left face down on the little table between them, opened to where Jack had been reading before Daniel had arrived. A clock ticked, loud and self-importantly on the mantle and the fire crackled in the grate, cosy and safe, and at odds with the rumpus the wind was causing out in the woods, outside those four walls. Daniel closed his eyes against a sudden wave of yearning to be a part of this quiet life – to share in its simplicity.

Jack passed him a plate with a slice of dark, heavy fruitcake on it and pushed a cup of steaming tea across the table toward him. 

“I’ve only just had breakfast,” Daniel said stupidly, but took a bite anyway. 

“It’s never too early for Mrs. Parson’s fruitcake,” Jack replied, as if this strange meeting was an everyday occurrence. “It’s good for what ails you.”

Daniel doubted that his cook’s cake, as fine as it was, could help set the swirl of confusion in his mind to rest, but he ate it dutifully, washing it down with Jack’s viciously strong tea as they sat in an unexpectedly comfortable silence.

Jack set down his cup and stretched his feet out towards the fire. Daniel noticed that he too only had his socks on and felt oddly moved by such a simple thing. He slouched down further in his chair and lined his own feet up alongside Jack’s, feeling his damp socks begin to warm up finally.

Daniel sensed rather than saw that Jack was watching him as they let their toes toast. He knew that Jack would wait for him to speak and he was grateful for that, and yet he stayed quiet for long minutes, wanting to stretch this moment of calmness.

When he finally could delay no longer Daniel found that all his prepared words had gone, and when he opened his mouth there was only brutal honesty to give.

“I can’t stop thinking about you.”

The wind had dropped momentarily, making his voice all the more shocking, but he couldn’t stop now.

“I think I’m in love with you.”

Jack didn’t move, didn’t seem to breathe, and Daniel counted the seconds by the overbearing clock.

Thirty-two. Thirty-three. Thirty-four.

His heart seemed to slow to match the ticking and although he willed his muscles to make him stand, to send him back out into the wood, he felt sluggish and frozen. Foolish beyond measure.

Forty-seven. Forty-eight. Forty-nine.

“Daniel,” Jack said so softly, Daniel couldn’t be sure he’d said anything until he turned to look at the man and found him staring back at him with so much written on his face that Daniel couldn’t decode it. “Men like us… it can’t be anything more than…”

“I know, but…”

“No. There’s no point in wishing for something you can’t have. We are what we are, and there’s nothing we can do about that. You just have to learn to… settle. Hide. Get by.” Jack ran a hand through his hair and leaned forward in his seat, his elbows on his knees. “Love, it’s not for… for men like us.”

“Get by,” Daniel echoed.

“Yes.”

“I don’t… I don’t know how…”

Jack stood as Daniel trailed off and held a hand out to him.

Silently Daniel accepted Jack’s tug as he pulled him up to meet him, pausing momentarily before he pressed a kiss to the corner of Daniel’s mouth, soft and off-target. He didn’t resist as Jack led him out of the sitting room, up the stairs to a small, plain but tidy bedroom.

Jack left him at the door, walking over to the bed as he unbuttoned his shirt and hung it over the end of the bedstead. He tugged his long-sleeved vest over his head and let it drop, turning to look Daniel directly in the eye.

Daniel swallowed, put out a hand to steady himself on the doorframe. Once again, Jack was waiting for him, letting him make the decision for himself without trying to sway him either way. With equal parts eagerness and terror, Daniel pushed away from the door and stumbled over the threshold into Jack’s room. He wasn’t sure if he’d make it all the way to the bed, but then Jack was there, his arms coming around him and guiding him to lay down. Jack’s fingers were dextrous and unhurried as he unbuttoned Daniel’s damp shirt, hanging it beside his own. His hands were warm and strong as they methodically stripped Daniel of his vest, his trousers, his socks and underwear. 

He paused only when Daniel was naked, spread out on Jack’s bed, his skin pimpling with the chill air. Jack’s eyes raked across him, lingering on his face, his shoulders and his half-hard cock. Without taking his gaze off Daniel, Jack’s hands fell to his belt. Still calm, still steady, he slipped it from its loops and unbuttoned his trousers. 

Daniel could only watch, once again unable to make his useless limbs work the way they should. He could hear his heart thrumming in his chest, hot and uneven in counterpoint to the pinch of the cold against his body. 

Jack pushed his trousers and underwear down in one swift move, stepping out of them and his socks before he knelt at Daniel’s side. His cock was stiff and proud, strangely dark against the paleness of the rest of his body.

Finally Daniel could move and he reached out a wondering hand to touch Jack’s thigh, the muscle bunched tight and the hairs rough under his fingers.

“Look at you,” Jack said throatily, some of that same wonder in his own voice. “So perfect. So fucking perfect.”

Daniel felt his blood thrill at the desire in Jack’s words, felt it recognised and returned within himself as his own flesh hardened and twitched in response. Jack’s eyes followed the movement and he reached out without any hesitation to take Daniel’s balls into the palm of his hand.

Daniel’s whole body jolted at the sensation of being held this way and his hand tightened on Jack’s thigh, digging in. He was powerless to move, breathing in shallow panting gasps while Jack took his time, caressing and rolling Daniel’s balls, rubbing a thumb at the base of his cock in a way that made Daniel ache.

Jack slid his hand slowly and deliberately up the underside of Daniel’s length, like he was weighing it up, taking his time to appreciate every inch of his skin. He swiped a rough thumb across the sensitive head, gathering the leaking drops from the slit before lifting his thumb to his mouth and sucking if off.

“You’ve done this before,” Jack murmured, sounding a little surprised. 

“N…not since… not in a long time,” Daniel whispered, amazed that he could speak at all. Jack was so contained, so very controlled while Daniel felt he might well fly apart at any second. 

“You want to do this? With me?” Jack left Daniel nowhere to go with his direct gaze and his knowing hands, so different to the silent man from earlier, content to wait for Daniel to make up his mind.

“I’m here, aren’t I?” Daniel replied, unsure where his bravado was coming from.

Jack smiled unhurriedly and took Daniel’s cock in a firm grasp, jacking him with exquisite slowness and precision. 

Daniel closed his eyes and arched up into Jack’s hand. He groaned aloud when Jack’s other hand took his balls again. Daniel felt surrounded and possessed, easily and willingly giving up all he had.

He almost came when Jack’s mouth suddenly swallowed down the head of his cock, his tongue searching out every last trace of his slickness. He slid his hand up Jack’s thigh until his fingers found the furnace-like heat of Jack’s thick cock. It was strange to have another man in his grasp again. It had been years since he’d touched a man this way and his fingers were greedy for the sensation of coarse hair and smooth, hard skin. Jack’s cock was leaking, slicking Daniel’s palm and wrist with streaks of coolness.

Jack was working Daniel hard, both hands and hot, sweet mouth demanding that Daniel’s body react, give him what he wanted. Daniel was too uncoordinated to do anything more than grip Jack’s cock in his fist and squeeze as his body clenched and strained and finally released. His cock jerked again and again into Jack’s waiting mouth, his balls emptying in a violent rush that left him light-headed and incoherent.

Daniel was only dimly aware when Jack settled between his legs, but he recognised the sensation of his fingers, strangely slick and curiously gentle despite their insistence as they pushed inside him. He moaned and shuddered as the sensation sent a fresh wave of aftershocks through him. 

“Come on, Daniel,” Jack was murmuring to him, pressing scalding kisses to the insides of Daniel’s thighs.

Daniel spread his legs wider, trying to get Jack’s fingers deeper, ready to accept all that Jack had for him, but Jack was thorough, rubbing Daniel’s hole inside and out, relaxing the muscles there.

Daniel didn’t think there was any chance of him becoming hard again, but the feeling of Jack’s fingers inside him, ghosting over places that made him shudder was unutterably good. He knew he was making a noise, but whether it was words or just grunting he couldn’t tell.

Jack must have had at least three fingers inside him by now and the stretch and burn was a sharp point of focus for Daniel’s mind, drifting as it was on a haze of pleasure.

Daniel lifted his hips and pushed back with each press of Jack’s hand, trying to show how open he was, how ready he was to be filled. 

Jack finally took pity on him and Daniel watched through heavy lidded eyes as Jack spat into his hand and palmed his cock, root to tip before, lifting Daniel’s thighs, lining himself up and pushing roughly inside with three sharp jerks.

Daniel’s back arched, forcing Jack deeper. His limbs felt like lead, his whole body strung-out and heavy, but Jack’s cock cut through all that, pinning him, compelling him to move and reach for even more.

Jack leaned over Daniel, one hand planted beside him and the other holding him open as he fucked into him with a bruising, bone-jarring intensity. Daniel wrapped his legs around Jack’s waist, trying to pull him deeper. He wanted to be able to feel this long after they’d done. He loved the fullness, the ache, the way his body stretched and his muscles grasped.

Jack found a good pace and reached between them to take Daniel’s half-hard cock. Daniel groaned and shook his head. It was too soon for him, but Jack growled at him and began to pull on his tender flesh.

“Don’t tell me no, Daniel. I know you can,” he said, his voice rough with the effort.

Daniel’s skin was burning, his hole hot and sore, but to his surprise he found himself getting harder again, Jack's fingers drawing a shivery pleasure from him, twisting and elusive. 

Jack paused, a shadow of a smirk on his lips as he looked down from Daniel's arousal and back to his face. "Knew you could," he murmured, his voice raspy. He hefted Daniel's thigh higher and bore down, driving himself deeper than ever, brushing something inside that made Daniel whine and shudder as sensation drew a line of fire from his toes to his scalp.

"Oh god!" Daniel whispered as Jack purposefully stroked at that spot with every thrust now.

"Knew you'd be like this, so responsive" Jack told him, panting. "Knew you'd love it if you let me fuck you. Didn't think you would."

Daniel listened to Jack's quiet words, shocked but delighted at the coarseness of his speech, at how his accent, so carefully hidden usually, came to the fore now as they both worked toward release. Jack's pace increased, becoming uneven and ragged and as Daniel crested, his cock pulsing, heavy and hard, he felt Jack come too, deep within him, their muscles seizing, their hearts thundering and their laboured breaths mingling in the chill of the air. 

It was a squall of rain that woke Daniel from his dozing, skittering against the window, it came and went with the gusty wind. Jack had collapsed down beside him, their legs still tangled, their skin sweaty and too warm where it pressed together. Daniel's hip complained at the angle of his leg and his back was chilled but he didn't want to move just yet. Jacks eyes were closed, but Daniel didn't think he was sleeping. 

"Why didn't you think I would? " he asked softly.

Jacks eyes didn't open and Daniel had given up on an answer when one came in a voice both quiet and composed.

"You never were one to take, even when you were a child. You watched. Your brothers, well you'd never mistake them for anything but what they were born to be. But not you. Quiet, you were. Thoughtful. Always watching, never doing."

Daniel knew the truth of that even as he marvelled at Jack's sudden talkative streak. He didn't think he'd ever heard so many words from the man. He kept quiet and waited, and was rewarded with more.

"It always weighed on you, the title, the house, the life you were born into. Not like Charles or your sister, nor even on Edward though he was heir. They were part of Hurstwood the second they drew breath, but not you. You do your duty, you respect your heritage and you ignore the fact that you would rather it all belonged to someone else."

Daniel breathed deeply though the knowledge that he'd been so plain in his quiet despair and his guilt at the embarrassment of riches laid at his feet which he saw as a burden more than a blessing. He wondered if he had been so easy to read to everyone. 

"That's why I didn't think you'd come to me, that it would go this far."

"Because I'm Lord Ashdown?" Daniel asked sadly.

"Because you're Daniel Jackson and once you have begun a thing you don't stop until it's done. Even if it's something you would never have chosen yourself. Even when it half drowns you." Jack smiled and opened his eyes finally and Daniel had a sudden memory of Jack at the lake, all those years before, tall and whip thin, skin brown as a nut, holding him by the back of his vest as he struggled to stay afloat.

"I am both," Daniel admitted.

"Yes, but you are Lord Ashdown first."

"And yet I am lying in your bed."

"For now."

"You say that love is not for men like us," Daniel began and Jack lifted an eyebrow but said nothing as he separated them and rolled from the bed. "But you're wrong, Jack."

"How's that?" Jack asked, stepping into his trousers and fixing the buttons.

"I don't know yet. I'm only learning my way. But I will prove it to you one day."

"I will look forward to that day," Jack said quietly and left Daniel to dress.


	6. Hurstwood Chapter Six

With Elizabeth gone, happily settling into her new home with her new husband and her new life, Daniel was surprised at how much he missed her. They had been close as children, more similar in temperament than their parents or siblings, and had found a kind of acceptance in each other that had been important to them. While conscious of her family's name and expectations, Elizabeth had always had a streak of unconventionality about her; not enough to alarm but an originality of thought and a questioning mind that Daniel had enjoyed. The house felt incomplete without her, not quiet, not with Charles and Silvia and their endless stream of friends, just lessened somehow. Even their recent New Year visit, although a happy one, had only marked her loss more keenly once they had returned home again. 

Daniel was in his study, supposedly looking over accounts, but in truth he stared out of the window at the grey skies, watching the rooks battle against the blustery January winds. A knock on the door brought him back to the present. "Come in," he called, picking up his pen and rearranging the papers on his desk guiltily.

"Daniel, I wonder if I might have a word quickly? " Charles walked in on Daniel's welcoming wave. 

"Is everything alright?" Daniel asked. With the baby already a week overdue there was a palpable tension in the house.

"Fine, fine," Charles assured him with a nod, "Doctor says everything is going as it should be. I wanted to talk to you about something else actually."

Daniel watched as Charles eased back in his chair and took a breath. He was still the irrepressible soul that he'd always been, but his good humour and unpredictability was now tempered with a responsibility for all that he wore it lightly. 

"Silvia and I have been chatting and we think its time we struck out on our own, what with the baby and everything."

"Charles, really? Are you sure, because it's not..."

"Daniel, come on, old man. We've sponged off you and the estate for long enough. It's bad enough me still being here at twenty-five, but with a wife and child of my own? Got to grow up sometime, eh?" 

Daniel shook his head. This couldn't have come at a worse time. "This is your home as much as it is mine, Charles. I don't want you to think that you are guests here."

"I know, and thank you. And its not like we won't be regular visitors, its only a couple of hours away."

"You already have somewhere in mind?" Daniel's heart sank a little lower.

"Well, Silvia's family has a house in Hampstead Heath, which isn't too far from the city. Her father's offered me a position with the family business, nothing too grand yet, not until I've learned the ropes and then, who knows?"

"Sounds like you've got it all sorted out then," Daniel said smiling at his brother's enthusiasm despite himself. "Is there anything I can say to change your mind, because you've been a great help around here, running the estate and keeping me on an even keel since... I thought you might consider staying on. We could get the Dower House at Stone Cross sorted out a bit, if you felt you needed space..." Daniel trailed off. The soft smile on Charles's face told him all he needed to know. 

"It won't be long before you have a family of your own here, Daniel. You'll have your hands full with that. You don't want me and mine to worry about too. Besides, this is something I need to do. A chap needs to provide for his family himself. It's a pride thing, you see?"

"Of course, of course, I understand completely, " Daniel lied. "Is there anything I can do to help? Anything you need?"

"Well, its going to be a few months before the place is ready, needs a bit of work you see. So if you can put up with us for a little longer..." 

"You don't ever need to ask, Charles," Daniel said, rising and coming round his desk. He stretched out a hand to his brother, then changed his mind and pulled him up into an awkward hug, slapping his back. They disengaged with embarrassed smiles on both sides and Charles left with a nod leaving Daniel to contemplate his emptying house with a sort of hopeless inevitability.

::~~::~~::~~::

Edward Daniel James Jackson was born in the last week of January, a day of watery sunshine and mild temperatures. He had ten fingers, ten toes and a lusty yell for something so small. Most of the excitement had happened during the night, and Daniel had done his best to calm and distract his younger brother who had swung from elated to terrified throughout the process. At five, even before the crows had begun to stir, they had heard the unmistakable sound of a disgruntled yell from three rooms away, a distance which hadn't been far enough to cut out all of the other less welcome sounds related to his birth. 

Daniel had watched as the nurse had laid the little boy in his father's arms for the first time and seen the utter wonder that stole across Charles's face as he gazed at his son. Charles had insisted that Daniel hold him too, and Daniel had been glad of the nurse's watchful attention as he struggled to hold the child in a way acceptable to her. He was pink and small, his fists tightly curled and his face stuck in a comical frown. Charles insisted he looked liked their father and Daniel had to agree. 

Daniel retired to his bed, hoping to get a few hours to make up for his sleepless night, leaving the little family to their joy, but he couldn't rest. At half past six he rose, his mind spinning and muddied with fatigue. He put on some clothes that would have made Stevens weep and took himself out into the woods. 

It was still dark under the trees, but Daniel's feet knew this path without the need for light. The little cottage was not much more that a black square against the trees, but a soft, golden glow shone from Jack's bedroom window.

Daniel knocked softly and let himself in. He kicked off his boots as Bramble greeted him with her stumpy tail thumping on the floorboards and cold-nosed, warm-tongued kisses to his hands as he petted her. She didn't follow him up the narrow stairs, knowing better than that. 

Jack was shaving and said no word as Daniel sat himself on the bed, his back braced against the brass bedstead. He eyed him in the little mirror, his hands never anything but steady as he scraped the soap from his skin, showing pink beneath. Daniel watched in silence, his restlessness slipping away unnoticed, content to watch this little domestic ritual. Jack rinsed the blade in the basin of water and completed his task, finishing with a towel to remove the last of the soap.

Finally he turned and regarded Daniel with that maddening slow smile which Daniel loved and hated in equal measure. Even now he wasn't sure that he wasn't being gently mocked but whenever challenged on it Jack would shrug and change the subject. 

"Urgent business, my Lord?" Jack asked his voice still rough with sleep. 

"Ass," Daniel muttered, turning to beat the pillows into a more comfortable arrangement. 

"Alright, what are you doing up so early? Isn't it time for all good peers of the realm to be tucked up in their beds, dreaming pleasant dreams until their breakfast is brought for them?" Jack picked up his shirt from the back of a chair but didn't move to put it on. 

Daniel ignored him. "Don't you ever light a fire in here? It's freezing!" he complained, although he had come to love the whitewashed simplicity of this little room. 

"No need. Nice and warm in my bed," Jack explained with a smirk. 

"Only when you're in it," Daniel countered and watched as Jack carefully put his shirt back on the chair, his head tipped to one side, bird-like.

"Do you want warming up, then?"

Daniel smiled at the obvious line. Is that why he'd come here? Of course, sex with Jack was a very good reason indeed to visit this little corner of the estate and Daniel had done so for precisely that reason on more than a few occasions since their first taste. But there was more to it than that. Life was simple between these four walls. Daniel felt a sense of safety and belonging here that he'd never really experienced before, like his soul was at rest here, however esoteric that sounded. He appreciated the ease with which they got along. It was stupid, insignificant things like washing up their tea cups together, sitting by the fire while Jack read, sharing news of their respective days as the light faded. 

But as much as Daniel thought it, he knew Jack didn't want to hear it. Whenever Daniel would try to explain, Jack's body would tense and his eyes would slide away from his own. He'd find a different topic or get up to make more tea and Daniel's chest would ache with it. So he'd stopped trying to speak and started watching instead. 

Jack gave himself away, Daniel was almost certain of it. Jack had said that love wasn't for two men to know or share, but Jack loved Daniel in every smile, in every touch, in every shared silence and in every kindness. Daniel told himself that was enough.

Jack was waiting, like he always did, calmly and without judgement. He never took, he never pushed and he never presumed until Daniel invited him. At first, Daniel had needed that, needed the control. He had to be responsible for the choices he'd made and Jack had given him that each time they'd come together. Now it was different; a gulf between them. Daniel knew that Jack didn't see himself as equal, even here in his own bedroom, and that was what Daniel needed more than anything. He wanted all of Jack, his heart, his passion, his trust and his friendship with nothing to limit it. 

But Jack's eyes were warm and intent, his hands were broad, capable and tanned, even in midwinter and once Daniel smiled, he knew that Jack would forget his title and their differences and he would get the real Jack; the one who swore and spoke perfect filthy words and called him 'beautiful'. Jack would demand and take and push and Daniel would forget too for a while.

Daniel smiled.

Jack only had his vest and trousers on, so was quicker to undress than Daniel. Jack's hands were impatient on buttons, they pulled roughly to uncover Daniel's naked skin then greedily spread across his body, touching and teasing and pinching. Jack's mouth was hot and his teeth sharp and Daniel sank into his need gladly.

Jack's fingers were sure now. They had learned each other's bodies well in the last few weeks. Jack knew when to push and when to take his time and this morning their need was desperate, as it sometimes was. He rolled Daniel onto his stomach, kissing his nape and scraping his teeth along his shoulder as he knelt above him, reaching to retrieve the pot of Vaseline from its drawer. 

Daniel anticipated him, lifting himself onto his spread knees and was rewarded with an approving groan as Jack sunk two fingers into him, quickly withdrawn and replaced with three. Daniel's back arched and he panted as Jack stretched him, not gently or carefully this time, but with determination and hunger. His breath hitched as Jack found the spot within him that he was seeking and as he rubbed mercilessly Daniel's arms and legs felt shaky.

"Ah, my Daniel," Jack whispered as Daniel whimpered at the onslaught of sensation. "You should see yourself. So perfect. So ready for me. Like you were made for me, so ready but so tight."

Daniel slumped forward as Jack's fingers left him, but Jack curled an arm around his waist and lifted him, he reached down and took Daniel's hand, wrapping it securely around the cold brass of the bedstead, then repeated it with his other hand until Daniel was almost upright, his thighs spread and his leaking cock bobbing in the cool air.

Jack wasted no time kneeling between Daniel's knees and moved him with impatient hands as he arranged Daniel just so. He entered him slowly, taking Daniel by surprise and forcing a long, low groan from between his lips. He had expected speed and greed but Jack took his time, seating himself slowly inside Daniel, taking care to completely fill every inch of him. 

"I’ll fuck you 'til you come," Jack told Daniel, ''I won’t touch you, no hands, no lips, just my cock. Does that sound good?"

"Please," Daniel whispered, his throat too full to speak.

The first few thrusts were the same, long and slow and exquisite, but if Daniel expected Jack to go faster now, he was mistaken. Jack set up a slow, rocking pace, each stroke within him to its fullest extent, and each one sliding sweet and slow over that perfect place within him. Daniel's cock dripped and jerked with each thrust and he fell into Jack's rhythm with a drugged intensity. 

He was getting close, his balls were tight and he needed just little more, but when Daniel tried to reach down to bring himself off, Jack growled and put his hand firmly back on the cold brass. 

"Just this, Daniel. I can fuck you like this for hours if you need it, but you will come on my cock."

Daniel bit his lip and tried not to whimper as his orgasm licked the edges of his consciousness, just out of reach.

Jack let go of Daniel's fists and reached down, curling his hands under Daniel's thighs and lifting him a little with each thrust. The change of angle took the edge off and Daniel relaxed, stopped chasing his completion to find that it was right there waiting for him. He groaned and shuddered, his seed pumping out of him in time with Jack's fucking. It seemed to go on and on, and when he thought he was done, Jack's cock would stroke within him again and another swell of sensation would push him further still. Then Jack was coming too, still controlled, still slow, but Daniel felt his panting breath on his shoulders, felt Jack's own shudders magnify his own. 

They collapsed half on - half off the ruined sheets and let the sound of the waking birds lull them to sleep. As Daniel drifted off he remembered that he'd come to tell Jack the news about the baby, but there would be time for that when they woke.

::~~::~~::~~::

February fooled them all with bright, mild days and snowdrops like drifts along shady banks. Everybody's thoughts turned to spring, even when the rain fell. But then the frosts came hard, night after frigid night, paving the way for four days of snow. Daniel couldn't remember ever seeing so much at Hurstwood. It covered the formal gardens, leaving bizarre shapes, unrecognisable beneath the thick white blanket below. The sky was still heavy with it, yellow-grey and threatening. The ground froze hard beneath it making every excursion a hazardous undertaking. Only the desperate or foolhardy went out in this, and with many of the surrounding roads blocked with drifts, there was little point. The countryside around Hurstwood seemed to sleep; only the farmers battled on to feed and water their livestock. 

Young Edward was a constant source of amusement to his parents and to the staff, some of whom remembered Charles and Daniel at a similar age. While Daniel agreed he was an interesting chap, he couldn't spend the inordinate amount of time his parents did with watching him and discussing him. He slept a lot, for a start. 

Daniel watched the sky each day, consulted the thermometers and barometers in the house and tried to occupy himself with estate business. With the grounds blanketed in snow he'd lost most of his excuses to be out and about in the woods but on the sixth day and with a thaw by no means set in but at least underway he could stand it no more and took himself out of the house. 

He walked around the long route to the woods rather than directly across the park. His footprints would have been too damning, too obvious on the ground. It was hard work, and once or twice he nearly fell, but eventually he made it into the little clearing, cheered by the thin line of smoke that rose from the chimney into the still sky. 

Jack was fetching logs in as Daniel approached, his arms full and the back door left ajar.

"Hello!" Daniel said. "Can I help?"

Jack seemed edgy as he straightened up. His eyes glossed over Daniel and took in a long, slow sweep of the woods around them. 

"Come inside," he said quietly and led the way into the house. Daniel shut the door behind them and pulled the heavy curtain across to keep out the draught.

"Is something wrong?" Daniel asked, carefully. Normally he would make himself at home when entering Jack's house but today something felt different. Jack's body language was stiff and uninviting. 

Jack turned to him and he softened slightly. He shook his head and sighed. "Take your boots off and sit down, Daniel. I'll get us a drink."

Jack went into the next room while Daniel complied, leaving his sopping boots on the mat and pulling off his coat. He sat nervously on one of Jack's kitchen chairs and watched Bramble, oddly subdued in her basket. Returning with a bottle and two glasses, Jack poured for both of them and took a seat opposite.

"Isn't it a little early for this?" Daniel asked carefully.

Jack didn't say anything, but took a sip of the whiskey, so Daniel followed suit, fighting the grimace that he made every time he drank the stuff.

"There's talk in the village," Jack said finally, watching the liquid as he rolled his glass.

"Talk about what?" Daniel asked, carefully putting down his drink. 

Jack didn't say anything. He didn't have to. His tired face said it all.

"Ah," Daniel said, swallowing the bile that rose in his throat. He breathed for a few moments, waiting to be sure of his voice. "Anything specific?"

"No, just rumours."

"About me?"

Jack just nodded and nudged Daniel's drink toward him again. Daniel ignored it. 

"It's nothing new, Jack. People have been talking about me ever since Edward died. I'm a bit of a disappointment to my family and my name. It will die down when something more interesting comes along."

"It's more than that, Daniel. Rumour is you have a lover."

Daniel nodded and took his glass back, draining it in one swallow. It was closer to home than he had anticipated but he tried to be rational. "It's just gossip, Jack. They don't know anything. They're just making stories up as to why I'm unmarried."

"And why is that?" Jack asked quickly taking Daniel by surprise. 

"I...I'm not... I haven't..."

"It's your duty, Daniel. Don't imagine you're the first man of your position who's had to make some concessions in order to keep up appearances."

"I... I don't." Daniel knew it was inadequate but this was the last place he'd expected the criticisms he'd lived with for several years now. He couldn't calm his breathing, let alone answer the accusations being levelled against him. By Jack of all people. 

"So what's taking you so long?" Jack pressed. "There's a hundred girls or more you've already discounted. Well bred girls, ones who won't ask questions."

"Christ!" Daniel swore, finally finding his voice. "Do you hear yourself? Is that the kind of life you think I want?" 

"Doesn't matter what you want, Daniel. You make do. You marry Lady Alice or Caroline or Katherine, you get a child on her and everyone leaves you alone."

"You're just like all the others!" Daniel spat. He got up from the table and turned to the windows, hiding his shaking hands under his armpits.

"You need to be realistic," Jack replied levelly.

"Fuck realistic!" Daniel shouted. The shuddering wouldn't stop and he curled his fingers over the cool ceramic of the sink. It was cold and hard and Daniel squeezed it with all his might.

Jack was quiet for a minute and the sound of dripping melt water and the soft slump of snow falling from the roof seemed ridiculously loud. He began again more gently. "What would you have then, Daniel? You think this is real, what we have here? You think you can go out each day and be Lord Ashdown and then come home to me every night in this tiny house and I'll have your dinner waiting for you? Does that sound real?"

"No," Daniel gritted. "I'm not stupid."

"So what then? What other options do you have? At least this way..." 

Daniel turned to look. Jack was watching him, his eyes filled with something Daniel couldn't name and at odds with the reasonableness of his voice.

"What?" Daniel asked. "At least this way what?"

"I'm not going anywhere, Daniel," Jack said quietly. "I know how these things are and the things that men like us have to do."

"So that's what you want, is it? You can live like that?" 

Jack looked away.

"You can watch me marry a suitable girl and know that I'm getting a child on her and that I'm sharing a bed with her."

"Like I told you Daniel, you make do." The whiskey had put colour into Jack's cheeks.

"Really? Because it doesn't always happen straight away you know. Sometimes you have to keep trying for a baby for months or years. Are you all right with that, Jack? With me fucking my wife before I come down here to you?"

"Daniel," Jack's voice was ice but Daniel wasn't listening.

"And one child wont be enough, will it Jack? Poor Edward was the proof of that. How many fucks is that, Jack? Is that still all right, Jack? Will you still be here?"

"Enough, Daniel," Jack warned, his voice was still quiet but his eyes were flinty, and he'd half risen out of his chair.

"And then there will be dinner parties and shooting weekends and house guests to fit in too to keep Lady Ashdown happy. That's a lot of time, so maybe we should think about when we could be together because what with all the entertaining and the fucking..."

"Enough!" shouted Jack, his hands in fists at his sides. The shriek of his chair on the stone floor lingered in the cold air. Bramble slid along the wall, making herself as invisible as she could before disappearing through the door.

"You're the one who needs to be realistic, Jack. You say that people like us can't love, but you're a liar. Because, as I've told you before, I love you." Daniel put his glass in the sink, straightened his chair and pulled his coat on. He stepped into his boots and pulled the curtain from the backdoor, opening it onto the sullen grey and white landscape outside. He didn't turn. "And you love me," he said quietly and shut the door behind him.


	7. Hurstwood Chapter Seven

The cold snap finally ended in early March and the land re-emerged, browner, wetter and more uninviting than ever. The mood seeped into the Hall, making the family testy and the staff quiet. Spring still seemed a long way off. 

Daniel and Jack had reached a kind of tacit truce between them. Neither of them made reference to their fight that snowy morning but it hung between them, filling quiet moments with its lingering volatility. Daniel was more careful about his trips to the cottage, going later or earlier in the day than before, making himself wait for longer than he really cared to between visits. He found he was more reserved in what he said when he was there, leaving him feeling miserable. Jack's manner had changed, too. Always a quiet man, he had somehow retreated even further from Daniel now who missed him desperately but just couldn't find the words to reach for him.

Daniel wasn’t entirely unhappy when he was needed in London to sign some legal papers. An acquaintance from his Oxford days had invited him to a preview of the latest finds from the Valley of the Kings at the British Museum while he was in town and Daniel accepted, knowing he would inevitably feel a keen stab of longing for Egyptian sunshine. So he drove himself up on a rainy Wednesday morning, guilty but glad of a break from the melancholy.

The exhibition was fascinating and Daniel felt his spirits rise as he lingered in town for a few days. The break in London gave him time to think more clearly and he resolved to make an idiot of himself if necessary and broach the subject of their disagreement with Jack on his return, to see if they could somehow clear the air between them. He felt sure with the coming of spring people would have more to occupy their minds than the goings on at Hurstwood and that would ease Jack’s fears. Daniel had even considered ways that they could spend time together away from the estate and was eager to share them with Jack and begin the process of talking him round sufficiently to act on them.

He returned to Hurstwood on Monday, again with squally rain buffeting the car but feeling more hopeful than he had in some weeks. There were other cars around by the garages that Daniel didn't recognise and he braced himself for visitors, probably more of Silvia's relatives coming to visit young Edward. 

Elizabeth was waiting for him as he walked in through the garden door and Daniel was slightly cross that she had known of his favourite, unobtrusive route into the house. He was glad of the momentary reprieve from the visitors, but she looked pale and tired, lacking her usual poise and Daniel wondered at her apparent lack of composure.

"Hello, Beth! I didn't know you were coming or I'd have come home sooner," Daniel smiled carefully, leaning in to kiss his sister's cool cheek.

"Daniel, this wasn't us, you have to believe me. I swear to you, Robert and I never said a word to anyone." Her voice was more alarming than the content; breathless and forced with words tumbling over each other.

Daniel carefully pulled his driving gloves off and laid them on the bench. He felt cold suddenly. The atmosphere, even here in one of the most informal rooms of the house was tense, quiet and waiting. "All right," he said, "what's happened?"

Before she could answer there was a curt knock and the door opened to Eden who made a short bow. Apparently everyone knew Daniel’s secret escape routes.   
"Good afternoon, my Lord. Welcome back. There are some gentlemen who have asked to see you immediately upon your return. I did explain to them that you were not expected until this evening, but they insisted on waiting. I have shown them to the library, sir."

"Thank you, Eden. What gentlemen are these?" Daniel's eyes strayed to his sister for enlightenment or strength, but she couldn't even meet his gaze.

"Mr. Henry Jackson, Mr. Jacobson and Dr. Wallis are among them, sir. I believe Mr. Charles is with them at the moment."

Somehow, Daniel thanked Eden who retreated the way he had come. Beth's eyes were huge in her white face and were now squarely on him.

"Do you know what they want?" he asked quietly.

"It was Uncle Henry. He insisted we all come down to discuss the situation. He wouldn't tell me why, but Robert says it's not good. What will you do? If it's... If they've heard..." She bit her lips and closed her eyes, her trembling fingers pressing into her chin. Daniel put an arm around her shoulder and took what little comfort he could from her as she leaned against him.

"I don't know, Beth, but I don't suppose we'll have to wait long to find out. Don’t worry. Go and see Silvia and the baby; you know how fretful she gets."

There was a fire in the grate and in the dimness of the rainy daylight it cast a warm glow over the assembled men in the library, very much at odds with their stony faces. Robert immediately walked to meet him as he stepped through the door and Charles sent him a worried but welcoming smile. His uncle, his father's physician, one of the senior partners from his father's solicitors and two of his aunts’ husbands made up the grim little group. They made a rather sombre scene ranged around the room, like a Van Meer or a Rembrandt, Daniel thought. 

He shook hands with all those present; even here the niceties had to be observed Daniel thought incongruously and somewhat hysterically. Charles brought him a drink, which he declined as he tried to breathe deeply.

"To what do I owe this unexpected visit? I'm afraid you've caught me rather unprepared having only just arrived."

"Yes," his uncle replied, "we thought it best to arrive unannounced. Given the gravity of our visit no amount of preparation would have been of benefit to any of us."

Daniel could only just hear his father's brother's voice over the sound of his heart, thundering in his ears. They sounded very similar, his father and his uncle, and Daniel had forgotten how very brusque that was.

"Shall I have more chairs brought in?" Charles asked.

"Not necessary," Henry declared without looking at him.

"No thank you, Charles," Daniel replied more quietly. "I think I'll stand."

Robert had angled himself to be facing the group alongside Daniel, and Daniel was grateful for the gesture, deliberate or not. His uncle spared no time in beginning, very much the spokesman for the group who were arranged behind him, making Daniel feel strangely like a child again.

"This family has been here for over two hundred and fifty years. Our name and our duty have been passed from father to son for eight generations at Hurstwood and countless generations before that. And in that time there has never been dishonour or scandal to besmirch the name of Jackson. Constans in Honorem it says on our crest, Steadfast in Honour. The family will not stand by and watch those years of dignity and service be undone by anyone, not even Lord Ashdown himself." Henry's cheeks had turned an infuriated purple in his fleshy face.

Daniel hoped he was standing straight, hoped his breathing wasn't as ragged as he feared. Was the old man going to spell it out? Was he going to use that word here, in company?

"We have not intervened until now, but...rumours have begun to circulate within society circles and we cannot turn a blind eye any longer. Your actions are a reflection on this family's good name and cannot be tolerated."

"Wait a moment," Charles interrupted, his face marred by an uncharacteristic frown. "What are you talking about? What rumours?"

"Charles..." Robert began quietly.

"It's all right, Charles," Daniel murmured, "let him say his piece."

The Right Honourable Henry Jackson's heavy features showed little interest in Charles’s questions. "We are here to offer you a choice, sir. You are to give up this depravity and marry immediately."

"Depravity?" Charles yelped and this time Robert took the young man by the arm, speaking to him quietly, leading him to the other side of the room.

"And the other choice?" Daniel asked, an icy calmness stealing over him from nowhere, a veneer over the horrific tumble in his chest and stomach and mind.

"The family will have you committed to a secure sanatorium by reason of insanity after you have signed a document to make Edward Jackson your heir regardless of any future progeny."

Charles broke away from Robert's hand and stormed across the room to face his uncle. He was furious, tall and angular, and the contrast with his squat uncle would have been comical in other circumstances. "Look here, I don't know what you are accusing him of, and I don't much care, but you have no right to speak to Daniel like that."

Daniel moved as if he was sleepwalking, his mind felt detached, as if he was watching himself from outside his own body. He took his brother by his shoulders, squeezed him quickly and even managed a small smile. He stepped between them and looked Henry Jackson in the eye and then each man in turn. None of them would hold his gaze for any length of time; only his uncle’s eye was steady.

"And this is the verdict of the entire family, is it?" he asked. His voice sounded to him as if it came from a great distance.

"No it bloody isn't," Charles snarled from behind him.

"It is," Henry stated implacably.

Daniel turned to Charles now and grasped his brother's arm. "Charles, you have always loved Hurstwood more than any of us, even Edward. I know that you will do a better job of..."

"No!" Charles exclaimed. He threw off Daniel’s hand and began to gesticulate wildly. "This is ridiculous. They can't come in here and demand things! You're the bloody Earl, Daniel!"

"...looking after it and teaching your son to love it like you do."

"Daniel, you can't be seriously considering letting them lock you away?" Robert interrupted, stepping in and putting a hand against Daniel's chest, his face full of concern. "It's barbaric!"

"Robert, I know I can rely on you to support Charles. You've always been such a good friend to me and my family."

"For God's sake!" Charles exclaimed, grabbing Daniel's sleeve.

They must have made quite a scene, the three of them, staring into each other's faces, consternation and anguish in each tense line and ugly angle as they grasped each other. Daniel looked his brother and his brother-in-law in the eye, each for a long moment then squeezed their hands and turned back to his uncle.

"I have another solution," he said, soft but certain. "I propose that the best thing for everybody would be for me to die."

The impact as the words registered was loud and sudden, with even the erstwhile silent witnesses moved to speak.

"Gentlemen, please. Let me finish,” Daniel continued, holding up a hand for quiet. He had no idea where this brittle strength was coming from, this uncanny calmness. “I'm not suicidal although I'm sure some of you think I should be." He smiled sadly as their eyes again slid away from his.

"I propose to take a holiday in the Alps. I'm noted for my vagrant tendencies and it will arouse little interest. My brother-in-law is a physician, as you know, and on his advice I intend to spend some time in the Alps. The air is good for nervous complaints, I understand. While there I will ill advisedly attempt an ascent of one of the more tricky glacier paths, alone and on foot. When night falls and I have not returned the alarm will be raised and the following morning they will find items of my kit discarded close to the most precipitous pass on the route. It is sadly a relatively common occurrence that the unwary or foolhardy are lost in the mountains, and my visit is certainly very early in the season. Many are never found. After a suitable period of mourning and the proscribed legally required time, I'm sure Mr. Jacobson can tell us how long that is, my brother Charles will assume the title and the estate. I have sufficient funds of my own, unrelated to the title, and again with Mr. Jacobson's assistance, I'm sure we can find a way for them to be transferred into the ownership of another name to be drawn upon as needed. Is there anything that I have forgotten?"

Daniel prayed silently that his suggestion would be accepted without further lengthy debate as the crust of his composure was beginning to crack. He feared hysteria was bubbling only an inch beneath and wished now that he had accepted that drink.

A large tumbler of brandy was pressed into his palm by his brother as the other men moved together to the opposite end of the room to confer. Daniel drank deeply and grimaced, but then went on to drain the glass.

Charles turned his back to the other men and peered into Daniel’s face. "Daniel, what the hell is going on here? What are they talking about? Why aren't you sending the old bastards packing? How dare they...? "

"Charles, please. Trust me in this. This is the best possible outcome for all of us. I don't suppose that I will have much time now." Daniel turned to Robert, his head bowed and his voice low and urgent. "I need to see him before I go. I have to explain."

"He's gone, Daniel. Your uncle was here on Friday; he must have been waiting for word that you were out of the way. Someone among the staff must have let on. O'Neill was dismissed without notice, they had the estate manager wait while he packed up his personal items then drove him to the station and put him on a train."

Daniel swayed a little and he was helped to a chair where they propped him on the arm. He still felt like he was falling. His own arrogance and stupidity had brought them to this. His selfishness. All his duty to his name and title, the thing that he had railed against but held up as his reason had in reality meant nothing to him, it seemed. And Jack. Not only had he brought about his own ignoble downfall, but he had ruined Jack as well. One thing that he'd tried to love and one thing that it had been all too easy to love, both now lost to him.

"Where?" he croaked but Robert just shook his head.

Charles refilled his glass and his own. "I don't understand," he said urgently. "They said the man was wanted by the police. No one said anything about any train or... Look! What's happening?"

Daniel gazed at his brother's face without a single word to offer him. It wasn't fair, but even if he'd had the energy to explain it would have taken hours. Robert would tell him once this was over and Daniel trusted him to be honest and non-judgemental. The idea of his younger brother thinking him a pervert or a monster was just to pile misery upon misery. Daniel didn't quite know how to keep breathing under the weight of it.

The assembled men moved as a group. Once again Henry stepped forward as Daniel stood to meet them.

"We accept your solution on the provision that you leave immediately. A reservation will be made for your outward travel and hotel accommodation."

"He's only just arrived," Charles argued, "Let the man take a breather! "

Henry Jackson looked from Daniel to Charles' angry glare and then relented. "Very well. A car will be ready for you at five to take you to Folkestone. We will leave you to get ready, but Mr. Jacobson will remain to see that all legalities are observed."

"Oh, for God's sake!" Charles exploded with a bark of harsh laughter. "Do you think he's going to take the bloody family silver?"

Henry ignored him. "Goodbye, Lord Ashdown."

This time they didn't shake hands.

::~~::~~::~~::   
Finally alone in his room, Daniel sat motionless. He had less than an hour before the car was to take him away from Hurstwood forever, but he couldn't bring himself to prepare. On his bed a brown leather suitcase lay messily half filled and downstairs in the hall a trunk in a similar state of dishevelment containing random clothing, some books and other ill-considered items awaited him.

He had said his family goodbyes, insisting that no one was to be there to see him go. Silvia had cried. Beth had refused to see him. He had passed all the items necessary to running the house and assuming the role of Lord Ashdown to his confused brother under the watchful eye of the solicitor. He had chosen a new name and informed his bankers to open an account in that name to be endowed with most of his personal assets. His own solicitor had been given necessary instructions. Daniel had informed the staff of his sudden new travel plans and had seen their concerned glances as they had been told that he would be travelling alone and would not be requiring their assistance in the preparations.

Since the second the men had left, Daniel had been wracking his brains to think of where Jack might have gone. He'd never mentioned any other place than Hurstwood or places he'd been posted to in the war. He'd never mentioned another family member. Daniel regretted the hours they had spent in silence or in idle conversation that they had never shared this kind of detail. As a son of the house, the details of Daniel's life had been common knowledge to Jack, but Daniel had never asked about Jack, never quite knowing if his interest would be welcomed, if there were things better left unsaid.

He needed to say goodbye. He needed to apologise. He needed to explain himself, why he'd risked so much, why he'd thought it was worth it and how he'd never imagined it impacting on Jack in this way. He needed to make sure that Jack was going to be all right, able to find a new position and be financially secure. He needed to see him, one last time. Just once more, like it always had been.

He’d given the remainder of his personal wealth in trust to Robert with instructions that it should be transferred to Jack if they ever found him. He’d tried to put together a letter for Jack to go with the money, but every attempt had felt inadequate and wretched. He'd written letters to Jack's old regiment and his former wife. Both reeked of desperation and he held out little hope for the responses. And even if they came, by the time their letters arrived he would be in Europe.

Daniel's mind skittered away from that again. His entire life beyond that walk up the mountain was a blank. A year ago the thought would have excited him enormously, no responsibilities, no ties, no expectations, but now he felt nothing at all. It was unlike anything else he had ever known. It was his nature to want to explore and learn, and now even that had deserted him.

A knock came at the door, respectful and subtle. A glance at the clock on his bedside table showed him that it was five. His car was here. He threw the handful of photos from his dresser into his suitcase and closed the lid. He noted with a wry smile, that the luggage Charles had sent for him was plain, not his usual monogrammed one. At least someone was thinking clearly.

As requested, the hall was empty but for Mr. Jacobson, who melted away into another room as soon as he saw Daniel. The house was quiet, just the small sounds of voices from another room and the ticking of the stately clock. It was darkening outside and only the side lamps were lit rather than the massive lantern in the centre of the hall ceiling. Daniel found that comforting and strangely fitting as he reached the doors. He could hear the noise of the car engine, idling at the bottom of the steps when something made him turn.

Beth stood at the bottom of the stairs. She must have been hiding, waiting for him. They met in the middle of the hall, falling into each other's arms. Daniel could feel her crying, her shoulders trembling and a spreading warmth where her tears soaked his collar.

"I'm so sorry," they said together, producing teary snorts of desperate laughter.

"You have nothing to be sorry for," Daniel told Elizabeth gently, holding her away from him and wiping tears from her cheeks with his thumb. He kissed her forehead, turned and picked up his case by the doorway.

"Neither do you," she replied softly as he pulled open the door and stepped out into the dampness of the evening.

It was over warm and stuffy in the car and Daniel kept his eyes down until the last moment, when they would sweep around the curve in the drive, then he looked for the last time, just once, across the park to the gateway to the woods and the line of trees, just darker shapes against the inkiness of the sky.


	8. Hurstwood Chapter Eight

The staff at Hotel des Alpes were always impeccable and Daniel was greeted by name as he opened the door to a young, uniformed man carrying a letter on a silver tray.

Daniel immediately recognised Charles's handwriting on the thick envelope and with quick thanks and a healthy tip he took it to the window seat to open. Daniel had spent a good part of his time at this window as it overlooked both the milky, grey river and Mont Blanc, shining white and massive above him. It made him feel insignificant and filled his mind with its enormity, leaving him no capacity to consider his utter lack of a coherent plan.

The hotel was fairly busy with tourists and skiers taking advantage of the end-of-season snow higher up, although down here in the village the snow had already gone and spring was well on the way.

Daniel had been here for a fortnight already. Mostly he had kept to his rooms, adding fuel to the pretence that he was here for his health. But every day he would take a walk, or ride the little red train up to the glacier. The weather had mostly been kind although it was still very cold at night and at altitude. Under other circumstances would have revelled in the beauty of the mountains and the clarity of the air. As it was, he was simply waiting for the last piece for his old life to finish, and now here it was in his hand.

He tore the envelope open and tipped the contents onto his lap. His new passport was dark blue and crisp. He opened the cover to find a photograph that Elizabeth had taken of him several years ago, sunburned and serious. He would have to memorise his new date and place of birth, but was pleased with his brother's choice of 'writer' as a profession.

Charles's letter was brief but heartfelt and made no mention of Daniel's disgrace, even though Daniel knew that Robert would have explained the reasons for his departure by now. He wished Daniel the very best and promised to keep him updated on life at Hurstwood whenever his brother furnished him with a forwarding address. He had enclosed a photograph of young Edward but he was sorry to report that there had been no responses to the letters that Daniel had sent before he left.

Daniel tucked the letter inside the passport and began to gather his things. He hadn't really held out much hope for news of Jack, but now he had to face the fact that he'd run out of time and was well and truly on his own. And still he had no clear idea of where to go next. It made sense to stay away from well-populated places and tourist magnets like Paris or Rome. He'd thought of maybe returning to Egypt, but that too was risky, knowing many of the academics that studied there. Daniel found it ironic how much time he had spent dreaming up itineraries for himself in the past and now given the choice of destinations, he could think of nowhere he wanted to be. The freedom he had was what he'd wanted, what he'd longed for all those years. And then he'd met Jack, and Hurstwood hadn't seemed such a terrible place to be after all, seen through his eyes. His future now seemed so abstract and nebulous and Daniel shied away from even thinking about it, let alone making any decisions.

He'd bought a knapsack in the village, a sturdy canvas and leather contraption, which he now filled with all the things he couldn't leave behind, some spare clothes and his new documents. He pulled on his thick jacket and hat, laced up his boots and looked around his room one more time. His bed was as yet unmade, a few personal items were scattered around; books, his grooming set, an unfinished letter to his sister. It looked sufficiently like the room of a man who expected to return that night. Only Daniel knew that it was the room of a man who would never live that life again. He closed the door softly and went downstairs.

It was still early and there were few people about. He asked the concierge if there had been any messages for him, knowing full well there hadn't, however it gave him the opportunity to be seen leaving the hotel and to turn down the offer of a guide when he announced that he was going walking near the Mer de Glace. He said he would return by sunset and asked the man to reserve a table for him in the restaurant for that evening.

The Montenvers train was almost deserted and Daniel found himself a seat facing up the track toward the mountain. His mind was worryingly quiet. He knew he should be feeling... something, but he couldn't even think of what that might be. He felt sure it would come to him when he reached his destination.

The whistle shrilled and there was a flurry of laughter and banged doors before the train pulled out of the station, beginning its twisting gradient up the mountain the second they left the town behind. Daniel blinked slowly as they alternated from the darkness of the tunnels into the brilliance of the sunshine. The trees outside the window thinned as they climbed and the world turned to pure light. Normally Daniel's heart would leap and his gaze would be everywhere at one, not wanting to miss a moment of the ascent but today he kept his eyes on his knitted hat, turning it in his hands.

He was the last to step out of the carriage, mindlessly acknowledging the greeting from the staff at the top of the line. The sun had real warmth to it today, but not enough to stop the shocking bite of the cold, thin air. The tourist hotel sat square and grey before him, a thing made of the same rock as the mountain but somehow uncompromising and ugly. Behind it he could see the peak of the Aguile du Midi, majestic and brilliant, stealing the sky. He turned his shoulder to it and followed the road that would take him to the little used route he had decided to follow that day.

The Mer de Glace stretched up the valley before him and he could make out a party of walkers, meandering up the ice in a tortuous line to avoid the crevasses and the shining blue areas of melting. He nodded to a couple of passing hikers as he left the main route to the glacier and began to follow a less defined path, running parallel to the ice. The trees were sparse here and the snow lingered. The path was uneven and rocky, and Daniel slipped more than once, careless about where he put his feet. His eyes were fixed ahead; he looked neither left to the glacier nor right to the towering peaks. He walked for an hour, not encountering a soul but for a couple of threadbare looking goats whose hooves clattered and skittered on the frozen scree. Despite the warmth of his exertions, he shivered as he turned into the mountain's shadow.

The track followed a rough wooden bridge that spanned a gouge in the mountainside. In the summer this would be a torrent, a spur of water chattering down from the snows above to join the ice, gurgling into its depths to emerge miles down the valley and pass outside Daniel’s hotel window in Chamonix. Today it trickled and whispered, still clutched by winter, and below the bridge the ice had fractured and split, tumbling slush among immense blocks of blue and grey into the body of the glacier itself.

Daniel stepped onto the rustic bridge rimed with ice and immediately his boots lost traction. With a grunt, he grasped the inadequate plank railing to save himself. More carefully, he moved out into the middle where the cracks in the frozen river below edged from white to blue to black the further they descended.

He was here. The path he had set himself upon more than a year ago, the choices he'd made and the chances he'd taken stopped here. This was where Daniel Jackson’s story ended. He prodded at the numbness that he now lived in, thinking again that he should be feeling something by now. This was it after all. But the meagre strength and purpose which had got him there was now exhausted and Daniel could see nothing ahead. Maybe there was a reason for that.

He wondered where Jack was now but he couldn't even picture it. He was mildly surprised by that; Jack, who had always seemed to him to be so incredibly alive, so natural, so in tune with who and where he was; how could Daniel not even imagine him, now at the end of their adventure? Perhaps that was the problem. Perhaps if Daniel had a place to start he might feel some kind of reason, some shape of the direction in which to begin, but there was nothing. Jack had never made any promises, and nor had Daniel, other than to himself. Daniel had never dwelt upon the future, yet somehow he'd felt certain that there would be one for them. It was at once so incomprehensible and yet so inevitable that he found himself here alone. Perhaps Jack had been right all along and love wasn't for men like them. Perhaps Daniel was the only one of his kind.

A fall of rock back along the path, perhaps an unwary goat, sent sound shimmering around the valley and brought his focus back to the last few steps of the plan he had.

Daniel peeled the gloves off his hands, idly recognising the kiss of the cold air. He reached into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out a coin. Flicking it out into the air, he watched as it tumbled over and over, out of the shade and into the sunshine before it dropped into the deepest crevasse below the bridge, a ragged gash that swallowed light just a few feet below the shining blue surface. Daniel waited for a sound but none came. He wondered what would happen to the silver coin; how many years it would remain in the dark ice, inching its way down the valley, scraped and distorted, before tumbling into the daylight and washing away with the milky river?

His gloves followed the coin onto the ice but only one slid over the edge. This time Daniel leaned out over the crack, raising his leg behind him for balance as he strained to see its path down into the depths. His boot slipped and he snatched at the flimsy railing, hearing it creak ominously then suddenly he was falling, his hands trapped and tangled in thick material, unable to grab anything to save himself. Darkness fell as his head connected with something hard.

"What the fucking hell are you doing, Daniel?"

Daniel blinked into darkness and groaned as his skull protested at the rough handling and the shouting.

"Are you all right? Say something!"

"Get off me!" he muttered.

He closed his eyes against sudden brightness and breathed deeply as the weight lifted from his chest and his hands and legs came free of the thick, woollen fabric. The cold of the bridge bit into his body through his clothes and his back flared red heat where he'd...? Had he fallen?

"Daniel?"

That was odd, because that sounded so much like..."Jack?"

He cracked an eye open. A gloved hand appeared in front of his face. It just hung there for a moment, but then began to wiggle impatiently, so Daniel cautiously reached out, grasped it and was unceremoniously yanked to his feet. He flirted briefly with the idea of vomiting and put out a hand to grasp the cold, wooden railing.

"You scared the life out of me. What the hell was that?" Jack yelled. When Daniel focussed he noticed that Jack’s gestures were uncharacteristically wild and his face red under his knitted cap.

Daniel swayed a bit and squinted as the reflected light seemed determined to prod its way through his brain and into the egg sized lump he could feel growing on the back of his head. "Jack?" he asked again.

"Are you all right? "

That was an excellent question. "Um," Daniel hedged.

A strong arm slid around his shoulder and a finger hooked below his chin, forcing him to look up into a concerned face. "Hello, Jack, " Daniel murmured, "What are you doing here?" He knew it was an underwhelming response to the bizarre situation he found himself in, but he didn’t seem to know how to fix that.

Jack peered into Daniel's eyes, which under other circumstances would have been just fine, but right now Daniel was wondering which area of his battered body he should investigate first for damage. Jack, however, had a much better idea and kissed him softly and slowly, breathing himself calm.

"What are YOU doing here, is the question?" he asked, quietly this time, once he seemed satisfied with the kiss.

"Um, faking my death?" Daniel offered. The heat of Jack's body was leaching into his own, soothing the aches and waking him up for the first time in days.

"Faking your... For Christ's sake, Daniel! I have to run halfway up a mountain after you, only to come around a corner to find you... I thought you were... Jesus!" Jack ran a shaky hand over his face.

Daniel kept quiet. He wasn't sure he'd understood his own mind at the time Jack had grabbed him, so putting it into words was going to be well beyond him. Instead he reached up his hand to Jack's face and ran his fingers over the stubble on his cheek. Jack looked tired, the crow’s feet beside his eyes had grown deeper, so Daniel stroked those next.

"How did you find me?"

"Your sister. She sent me a letter."

"She knew where you were? "

"No. She'd written to members of my old regiment. And my sister. And my bankers. I got five letters over three days, all asking me to contact her."

Daniel smiled. It felt strange, like he'd not smiled in years. He imagined Beth tracking down every whiff of a lead and bringing her considerable will to bear on anyone she thought might be able to help her. Help him.

"So I telephoned her. She told me she’d got Bramble. She told me where you were. Where you'd be. She didn't mention any plans for faked deaths. Just told me that tickets were waiting for me and…”

"Did she threaten you?" Daniel asked, amused.

"She did,” Jack smiled for the first time at that. “But she needn't have. I'd have come, Daniel. I was always going to find you."

"Were you?" Daniel felt genuine surprise at this. None of his experience had led him to expect such a thing from the quiet, self-contained man in front of him.

"Of course! Bloody hell, Daniel, you don't think I'd just..." He trailed off and looked carefully at Daniel. "But you do, you do think that." Jack’s shoulders fell and he drew a shaky breath.

"Jack," Daniel began but stopped at the bleakness in his face.

The ice creaked and squealed below them suddenly and Jack seemed to come back to himself, at least partially. He sighed and looked back down the path they'd come along. "What's the plan, then?"

"I...I didn't really think much beyond..." Daniel gestured at the glacier with numb fingers.

Jack's eyes were sad as he watched Daniel struggle to explain. He sniffed, nodded and squared his shoulders. "Right, new plan," he announced quietly. "Can you walk?"

Daniel thought he could walk for as long as needed if Jack was going to be there too.

Jack took Daniel's pack and with a little assistance pulled new clothing out, wrestled Daniel out of his jacket and hat and hurled them far out onto the broken ice where they both slid obligingly into a crevasse. He waited while Daniel put on another coat and gloves then shouldered his pack and watched as Daniel dropped his old passport, some coins and a map onto the glacier too. His face was tight when Daniel rejoined him.

"All right. We'll walk back down, nice and easy, to the village. We’ll pull your hat down and your scarf over your face. I’ll hire a car from a local garage. We can drive to Geneva and catch a train to…"

"Well…Nice? Milan? Vienna?"

Jack's eyebrows rose. "What, really no idea at all?"

Daniel just shrugged and shivered, making Jack curl his arm around him again and lead him slowly off the icy bridge.

"Christ, Daniel. What were you thinking?"

"I wasn't really," Daniel admitted. “Or I’d been trying not to.” He sounded pathetic but couldn’t pull together the energy required to lie.

“No, well, I think we're both in need of some serious thinking time pretty soon, so I suggest we find somewhere remote for a few months and wait for the excitement to die down. Then you can put that expensively educated brain of yours to work to find us somewhere an archaeologist and a gamekeeper can find gainful employment in relative anonymity. How does that sound?"

Daniel allowed himself to be led back down the path by his hand, Jack's warm gloved fingers guiding him carefully. His head still throbbed, but his heart thumped loud enough to drown it out. What Jack was suggesting so blithely was surely impossible. Hadn't Jack himself told him that a life like that wasn't for men like them? Because wasn’t that what he was suggesting; a life? Together? The two of them?

"Daniel?"

"It's James now."

"What?" Jack stopped and turned, his fingers unerringly finding the lump on the back of his head as he peered into Daniel’s face with concerned eyes.

"Ow! It's James, my new name. James Ballard. Owwww! "

Jack withdrew his hand and nodded as understanding dawned. He smiled suddenly, wide and real. "James, eh? I like that. Jim. Jimmy Ballard, Esquire."

"James," Daniel insisted quietly, but Jack was already thinking up new names for himself while pulling him along the path again out of the mountain's shadow and into the spring sunshine.

Fin


End file.
